HWC 2020

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What is HWC?

Hunter Women’s Cycling is an amateur cycling team that provides an encouraging environment for Hunter women to race their bikes and develop their skills, with support from like-minded women.

We ride road bikes primarily, but we also love mountain bikes, BMX and track bikes. We are all registered members of the Newcastle Cycling Club.

You can find out more about the 2020 team by clicking here.

You can see what events we have in our calendars for the year, by clicking here.

You can follow our adventures right here on the blog or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hunterwomenscycling

Our fabulous sponsors for 2020 are:

Ted’s Bike Shop
Quarry Mining
Todd Bowd Electrical
Hills Tankers
GHD
Burger Urge (Greenhills and Glendale)
Hunter Performance Physio

You can get in touch with us at hunterwomenscycling2020@gmail.com – or by contacting the team members directly.

The Port to Port is a 4-day mountain bike stage race that takes in vineyards of the Hunter Valley, the old school singletrack around Mount Sugarloaf, the monster climbs in the Watagans and the super scenic Glenrock trail network.

The 4 day event has run every year since 2014, with tweaks made to the courses each year. In 2019 the organisers shook things up by introducing a team category. This is the style of racing used in bigger badder stage races like the Cape Epic. You race as a pair. You stay within 2 minutes of your team mate for the whole event and do what you can to support one another, physically, mentally… (and medically or mechanically if things go pear shaped!).

120 teams lined up at the start line of the 2019 event. Most of those were mens or mixed teams. There were only 9 women’s pairs taking part.

HWC wants to see that number increase – so – on a bit of a whim, Karen and Georgia have just signed up as a team for the 2020 event.

The HWC duo will climb 4,300 vertical metres and cover 195km of singletrack, fire trail, grass, gravel sand and bitumen over 4 days at the end of May.

Stay tuned for updates from the team! And check out the 2018 doco to get a feel for what the event is all about.

Race Report: HMBA Twilight Series

Janelle and Georgia battled the peak hour traffic to get out to the Awaba Mountain Bike Park just in time for a fast and furious hour of twilight racing with over 60 local riders.

After a months of fires and a week of rain, the 4.5km course was tacky in parts and slippery in others. The short lap included punchy climbs and lots of twists and turns on the new development track.

The format is simple. You ride as many laps as you can in an hour. If you get lapped by the leaders, you finish the lap you’re on and call it a day.

The HWC girls were the third and fourth females to cross the line. Full results are available here.

This first race was part of 3 race series that will continue on 19 and 26 February. The entry fee is $10 per race. You need a current MTBA race licence. You can find out more about licences here.

Check out the HMBA website or facebook page for more information about upcoming races.

Hot & Humid @ HEZ

HWC kicked off its road racing campaign on a hot and humid morning at the Hunter Economic Zone.
Karen worked hard in the bunch and put the hammer down on the final lap to take the win in D Grade.

Georgia had some mechanical dramas in the middle of the race – but all was not lost! Tresa and HWC-veteran Lauretta formed a chatty little grupetto and nursed Georgia and her bike all the way to the finish line (where they stole quite a bit of ice from the esky to cool themselves down).

Karen is planning how to spend her prize money.
Tresa promises to do a bit of post-race stretching.
Georgia’s bike is on it’s way to visit our sponsor, Ted’s Bike Shop for some much needed TLC.

Post race photo shoot with Georgia, Nousha, Tresa, Laura and Karen

Shout outs also go to:

Rebecca for taking most of the photos in this post;
The junior girls from Hunter Academy of Sport, who crushed it out there today:
Nousha, who battled through asthma and bushfire smoke to wreak havoc in the E-grade bunch; and
Laura, who got an early puncture and could have called it quits – but instead replaced her tube and got back on the road to complete the last laps with the C grade bunch.