Round eight of the Angus Place Springvale Coal Winter Mountain Bike series was a great spectator event as crowds took advantage of the mild conditions and settled in to watch the action over a picnic lunch in the pine forest.

Another special round, the Down Hill versus Cross Country "all in Group challenge" made use of a completely different format.

Riders raced against the clock in an individual time trial, similar to a standard Down Hill race but along a section of cross country track.

This gave the Cross Country riders a taste of Down Hill style sprinting, without the steep scary bits and the Down Hill riders a taste of the tighter cross country type courses without too much pedalling.

Riders were given two timed runs down the course with their best time of the two counting towards points.

After the two runs the start and finish gate were swapped and riders reversed the track in a hill climb to the top.

A very tight top section gave way to a more open and fast bottom and the secret of a good time seemed to be negotiating the twists and turns of the top smoothly while conserving enough energy to pedal as hard as possible down the faster section.

First rider down, Matt Walker, set the early pace, laying down a time of two minutes 35.04seconds along the one km course.

The time held out until under 17 rider Zach Ford went one better with a 2:33.73.

This time stood until the last rider of the first run, club president Craig Flynn, managed a 2:32.43.

Flynn went quick again in the second run to take the win in a best time of 2:29.81.

Darren Willis was in second place with 2:34.01 while James Smail got third in 2:34.10.

Under 19 rider Luke Newcombe had the second fastest time of the day to win under 19 in 2:32.41 ahead of Dan Whyte 2:41.67.

Flynn backed up to take out the bonus points hill climb in a time of 4:22.01 with Daniel Blowes in second 4:28.84 and Phil Stapleton in third 4:33.86.

Full results can be found at www.ctmbc.net.

A big thanks to all the helpers and the sponsors and well done to all the riders, especially the Down Hill kids who took on the hill climb on their big bikes.