Youth the future of Ballymoney Cycling Club

On Saturday Phil Holland, Eamon Burns and Mark Greer planned and implemented a unique event for the young riders. They organised the “David McCall Foundation Reliability Trial”.

This was based at Crumlin Community Centre and was for under 12’s/13’s and 14 in a group and another for the under 15’sand 16’s.

They were escorted by senior riders and motorbike out riders, PSNI assistance, lead cars and“broom wagons”.

The 12/14’s route was over 40 miles and the 16’s covered 50 miles.

This was not a race but a chance to get the top young riders from all over N.Ireland together and allow them to let off some controlled steam and for newcomers a chance to see what it was like to ride in a bunch and experience the close-quarter riding just like the professionals do in major events like the Tour de France.

Ballymoney Cycling Club who are developing a strong group of youth riders, both boys and girls, took some of them who were available to this event.

They were Stuart Laverty U16, Jack Owens, Jun, Chris Surgenor U16, Mathieu Patton U12, Aoife Cameron Mitchell U14, Ryan Orr U16 and Irish Champion schoolboy Aaron Swan.

As this was not a race it gave the adults accompanying the young ones a chance to pass on snippets of their experience and road craft.

Ballymoney Cycling Club would like to thank their adult club members who came along to assist the riders: Laurence Patton, Rhonda Swan, Rhona Laverty, Joan Trengove, Geoff and Julie Orr, Chris Surgenor and Maurice McAllister.

As this was going on senior riders Jason Taggart and Phil Smith were taking part in the Clann Eireann Cup at Derrymacesh. Both riders had a successful days racing and finished in the bunch. The race was won by John Bann Lavery from Lurgan.

Also in action was Steven McAllister, he was in Donegal and was 5th in the North Pole event won by An Post professional rider Ronan McLaughlin.

Sunday saw McAllister and Smith at the PJ Logan Cup race in Coalisland, they were accompanied by newcomer Martin Carroll in only his second race ever.

Martin rode in the A4 race and was very satisfied with his performance finishing in the bunch with the same time as the winner.

Steven McAllister and Phil Smith both were in the main field but were not able to catch the A3 group who had a three minute handicap and held over 2 minutes of it to the line.

The race was won by McCann cup winner Stevie McKenna.

Coming Events

This weekend BCC Racing Team riders senior and youth will be in action at the Cicli Sport Road Races at Coagh and then on Sunday at the Carn Wheelers Classic in Tobermore.

The first BCC race of 2012 will be the “Lung Buster” 5 mile time trial on Wednesday 4th of April on the Portrush, Ballybogey line.