Levi Hone’s star continues to rise, with the Echuca Moama Cycling Club product putting in a phenomenal ride to finish fourth in the under-19 road race at the 2024 AusCycling Road National Championships in Buninyong on Saturday.
Racing across 104.4km, or 11 laps of the course that sees competitors climb Mt Buninyong, a nasty ascent that peaks at a gradient of 8.4 per cent, Hone and fellow EMCC member Lenny Griffiths lined up alongside 103 other riders all vying for the title of Australian champion.
Hone was sporting the blue kit of Team BridgeLane, a UCI Continental team, which he has recently joined after being put in contact with the team’s manager.
“I’m very fortunate to have some good people in my corner who have actually rode for BridgeLane before, so they know the manager pretty well,” Hone said.
“They had spoken to him about me a little bit, and then I also emailed him and had been in contact with him a bit, and then we just went from there.”
The race got off to a hot start which, combined with the 11 ascents up Mt Buninyong, eventually took its toll on the field as the laps wound down, leaving Hone and an elite group of juniors at the front of the race.
“The last couple of laps were quite solid up the hill,” Hone said.
“That kind of just kept whittling down the bunch. We went from probably like 50 to 60 guys with three laps to go, to 20 to 30, and then after the last lap up the hill there was only six of us over the top.
“After the hill was probably still eight or 9km to the finish of mostly flat or even some downhill, and then it was just cat and mouse between the six of us for a few kilometres.
“Will Heath and Max Goold — Will was one of my teammates as well — they were actually up the road, maybe had five or 10 seconds on us, and then myself and Wil Holmes attacked.
“The six-man group that went over the climb on the last lap was in three groups of two, and through the university Will Heath dropped his chain, but then there was just Max Goold out in front of us and then myself and Wil Holmes working to try and catch him.”
The trio was fighting for the final two places on the podium, with Hone’s BridgeLane teammate Toby Inglis having crossed the line 33 seconds ahead of the chasing pack.
But as the line approached, Hone lost contact with his two companions, eventually securing a superb fourth.
Not that it was any consolation to the star junior, who wasn’t sure how to feel about the result.
“I knew I was in good form coming into it, but you never know on the day,” he said.
“I was hoping for a podium. I think it would have been a very good result, and even a win if things went my way, but fourth is okay, I’ll have to settle for that.”
Griffiths also rode strongly in what was a hotly contested race, finishing 55th, 19 minutes and 31 seconds adrift of the winner.
The national championships formed the first of the two selection races for the Australian junior team to head to the world championships in Zurich, Switzerland this September, with the Oceania championships in April the final chance for Hone to punch his ticket.
But there is already some European racing secured for Hone, who has lined up a three-month stint in France to test himself against the world’s best juniors.
“There’s not much racing really in the Australian scene any more, so I go to France in the middle of April to race for a French team over there as well,” he said.
“So probably the biggest part of my season will be the European season. I’ll be there for three months.
“(I’m racing for) U19 Academy Region Sud Powered by Giant, and the racing I’ll do there will be very high level, some of the best junior races in the world, so just have to go there, see how I go and then, yeah, see what happens afterwards.”