Big entry forces race to be moved

This circuit was only introduced less than a week before when the club committee realised that there were too many participants to run the road race at the scheduled location on the Glassdrumman Road.

This was a well justified reason as there was a turn out of 50 riders, of which eight were from other local clubs, and this circuit of just over four miles was more manageable. This race was sponsored by Seamus Downey Cycles.

Club race secretary Nigel Sudlow had done his calculations in the days leading up to the race and had decided on five groups of riders and six laps. This helped to get proceedings underway very quickly on the night with Group One setting off around 7:15pm with eight riders including four youths.

Group Two set off three minutes later and contained 13 riders including three women. Group Three was the smallest with just six riders and they left three minutes after Group Two.

Group Four had 10 riders and left three minutes after Group Two. The scratch group contained 13 riders, among them were Glenn Kinning (East Antrim) and Davy McKnight (Dromara CC) who are taking part in the gruelling Tour of Ulster which starts this Saturday. Scratch went off at 12:45 behind Group One.

Racing was intense, especially for the first two laps, and the circuit was a tough one with a bit of a climb to test the riders. After the second lap Mary Hunter had got dropped by Group Two and Stevie Baines had retired from the race.

By the end of lap 3, Group One had been caught by both Group Two and Group Three with James Gilpin getting dropped off the back of Group Three and Stewart Moore getting dropped from Group Two.

Both Gavin and Chris Magowan were dropped from the scratch group. Nathan Proctor and Cathal Hendron retired from the race. By the end of lap four half of Group Two had merged with Group Three, and the scratch group had caught Group Four to form a big group of 18 riders. Peter Jamison, Stewart Moore and Damien McDonald retired in this lap.

On the penultimate lap it was still the nine man group (Group Three with half of Group Two) leading the race, followed by the rest of Group Two with the supergroup now splitting lead by Davy McKnight. On the final lap it was the group of riders made up from Group Two and Three who managed to hold off the Group Four and Scratch group.

Leading the way up the hill towards the finish line was Phil O'Neill, normally found on a mountain bike, who was enjoying his first ever road race. He had managed to pull away from his group to get a gap of eight seconds over closest rival and fellow Group Three rider Stephen Wallace.

Next across the line were four riders from Group Two: newcomer John Cycle, Paul Jess, Alan McMullan and another newcomer, Rodney Stewart. They were followed by three from Group Three: Jonathan McBride, Peter Bryson and another mountain biker Geoff Brown. Glenn Kinning lead the finish from the scratch group just ahead of Darren Weir and Davy McKnight.

Eoghan McGuigan was left to finish the three lap U14s race after Nathan retired. In the great U16s battle it was Chris Weir who took the win finishing 19 seconds ahead of Zak Hanna after five laps of the course. Val O'Neill was the first women over the line closely followed by Caroline Patterson. Mary Hunter finished one lap down.

Many thanks to timekeepers Trevor Annett and Davy Robb and to all the marshals for keeping the riders safe. The next round is a time trial on Thursday May 6, starting at 6:50pm in Annahilt.