Bann Valley club members enjoy meeting cycling legend

Bann Valley Road club members pictured with cycling legend Stephen Roche. Picture: Ciaran McGuckin (www.carnphoto.com)

BVRC were invited to take part in a very special event at St Mary’s Primary School Greenlough, who had won a Giro d’Italia-themed competition in the Irish News.

The prize was a visit by Stephen Roche. The Club formed a guard of honour for the cycling star as he arrived and entered the school where he was greeted by the winning P7 class and teachers.

After the formalities were over Stephen Roche made himself available for autographs and ‘selfies’ and finally posed for a photograph with the Club members.

This was especially significant being BVRC’s 25th anniversary and will stay in the memories of the local cycling fraternity for many a year.

Meanwhile, another record was set at a Bann Valley Club event in last week’s GMC Electrical Road Race League event.

By 7.10 over 80 riders had declared their intention to compete. This had beaten the previous number at a BVRC race by almost twenty.

With marshals in place and the groups set out the race was started in five bunches with six minutes from first group to scratch.

By the end of the first lap the race had sorted itself into two groups and the leading bunch were riding very well and holding their gap to the scratch groups.

This gap closed very little during the second lap and by the sprint the leading bunch were still a minute or so in front.

During the final metres of the sprint Gary Reid Ballymena Road Club move clear and took a well deserved victory. The second and third places were very close but Michelins Declan Butler just edged Bann Valley’s Brian Scullion into third.

Second and third Club places went to Enda McKeever and Sam Campbell.