North brought his climbing legs to the challenging Bathurst Cycling Club race, which saw riders ascend Rockley Mount three times in the combined A and B grade event.

Brian Draper beat Bruce Goddard to the runner-up spot. Scratch markers Ryan O’Donnell and Mark Windsor flew home to round out the top five.

North said his starting group was handed a tough assignment but did an excellent job.

“I was riding with two other guys. We were five minutes ahead of the scratch group, which had four riders, and we were three minutes behind the next block which had six riders so we were kind of in no man’s land,” he said.

“Daniel Went and Steve Scott started contributing in the second lap, and they put in a big effort. In the climb on that lap we could see the group in front, and Steve put in a massive dig and got me across.”

Scott and North caught the group ahead to form a seven-strong bunch with Steve Bennett, Bruce Goddard, Hayden Booth, Steve Jackson and Drew Carter.

The hard-chasing scratch group of Craig Hutton, Josh Corcoran, O’Donnell and Windsor still had over four minutes to make up on the group in front at the last lap.

“I didn’t really attack or pick up the pace. At the start of the last climb I turned around and probably had a 100 metre gap so I thought ‘Alright, I’ll see how I go’ and managed to stay away,” North said.

“I won this event as an A grade scratch race last year, and that was in terrible conditions. It was a little bit warmer this year, but on the second lap on Saturday there was a headwind the whole way which made it brutal.

“I’m glad we caught the guys in front before that last climb because it was so windy.”

In the C grade race Rob Barlow beat Kevin Bell and Donna Scott. Rosemary Hastings was too good for Norman Wise and Ian McEwan in D grade.