Carn Wheelers earn honours at Tour of Omagh

Aidan Higgins, Carl McWilliams, Diarmuid Logan, Dean Lockhart and Rodney Young signed on for the men’s race while Mairead McGurk took to the start for the ladies race.

Friday night was a 44 mile loop with three categorised climbs and two intermediate sprints.

In the closing miles it was Carn man Higgins who pressed hard for the sprint taking third with a critical four bonus second.

Saturday morning started with a short out and back time trial on a closed road, it was always going to suit strong man Logan - known for his good TT results. Diarmaid kept the hammer down and walked into the lead yellow jersey with an eight second advantage.

Stage 3 rolled out on Saturday afternoon with Logan in yellow it was up to the team to protect him through the 42 miles with another 3 categorised climbs including the Category 1 ascent at Sion Finn mountain.

Carn controlled the stage for the early part to the first sprint where it livened up and attacks started to go but everything was brought back and Logan was never under any threat.

All was going to plan until the second climb of the day when the man in yellow had a mechanical, after a quick bike change from the support crew he was back on and battling his way back to the peloton.

With bonus seconds collected at the intermediate sprints on stage 3, Logan’s advantage was whittled down to just three seconds. The instructions from the ‘Directeur Sportif’ were to mark any of the contenders and neutralise any threat to the jersey.

In the neutralised section a bike change was required for Logan before the stage began, switching for Raphael Scullion’s machine with electric gears.

At 15 or so miles in, the jersey man had another mechanical with the electric gears packing in and with the hardest climbs of the race still to come every gear on the bike would be needed.

With another quick bike swap on the road from Higgins he was back on the bike again - battling hard to get back on before the climbs at Gortin.

Coming to the line it was Adam Greally who took the stage 4 win and 10 second bonus but after some calculations and a hand shake from race director Stevie McKenna it was confirmed that Carn Wheelers would take the race victory by a slender 1 second margin.

Well done to all and thanks to the support team of Dessie, Johnny, Daryl, Joe and Paddy who were busy throughout the weekend.

Thanks to local Bann Valley men Adrian McPeake for the running repairs and Paul McQuillan for donating his bike which ended up being ridden by the race winner.

This weekend the mountain bike community descended on Davagh Forest for the second Davagh Enduro. Tomas McElwee continued on his current vain of great from after his great finish at last week’s XC race in Garvagh he proved his can descend taking 2nd in the Sport Mens’ category.

Club Road Race- well done to Johnny Taylor and Marc Heaney who finished 1st and 2nd in the Carn Wheelers RR on the Curran Circuit.