Road Race - Old Belfast Road / Glassdrumman (map)
10 July 2012
With July 12th falling on a Thursday the club league event was switched to Tuesday night with a further change from a time trial to a road race. This road race was set up as a special event where the club's fastest riders (scratch group) opted to marshal or time keep the event rather than race. This allowed the other riders a chance to have a more open race without the faster guys chasing them down. The event was set up to allow newcomers to have a go at racing and, with this in mind, the normal race points system was not applied for this round. All riders were given the same league points.
As a novelty for this event, race secretary Gavin Magowan, contacted local cycling shops who kindly donated prizes for this event. There were prizes for two "primes", one "king of the hills", the top "aggressive rider" as well as prizes for the first three to cross the line. Many thanks to CycleZone, Slane Cycles and to ChainReaction Cycles as well as to the Magowan brothers who provided prizes themselves.
The venue was the Old Belfast Road / Glassdrumman Road circuit. The short circuit is a real favourite with the riders with the simple set up of a start/finish straight, a short sharp climb and a long descent. The area is almost traffic free with only a local bus service coming through and traffic from the residents. An earlier shower had left the circuit damp with the final corner into the home straight being quite tricky to carry speed through.
There were three groups on the night, which amounted to 27 riders in total. Group 1 had 5 riders, Group 2 set off 3 minutes later with 13 riders, Group 3 set off 2½ minutes later with 7 riders with David Chambers and Barry Kellett given a 30 seconds handicap on Group 3. All riders had to complete 8 laps of the circuit.
At the end of lap 1 there was barely any change in the gaps between groups. At the end of lap 2 there was a 'prime' with the first rider to cross the finish line getting a prize. This went to Brendan Doyle who give everything he had to cross the line first and then promptly retired from the race a short distance past the line. This left just 3 riders in Group 1 as Barry Kane was off the back of this group and now riding on his own between groups. By the end of lap 2 Group 2 had reduced the time gap from 3 minutes to 2 minutes 19 seconds and behind them Group 3, now with David and Barry on board, had reduced the gap to Group 2 from 2½ minutes to 1 minute 41 seconds.
By the end of lap 3 the time gaps between the main groups had remained the same but there was an increasing amount of riders left riding between these groups. It was in lap 4 that the decisive move of the day took place when Ted McKibbin, a rider in his 60s, surged ahead of the other two in Group 1 to edge out a 6 second lead going over the line. Ted still had 2 minutes on the chasing Group 2 who were working strongly and had managed to stretch away from Group 3. Unfortunately Tommy Downey crashed at the corner into the start/finish straight but luckily only sustained some cuts and grazes.
By the end of lap 5 Ted had increased that lead to 25 seconds over his nearest chaser Malcolm MacDonald with Richard Cowan over a minute behind Malcolm. Group 2 had closed the gap to Ted by 10 seconds. Lap 5 was also a "prime" lap which was taken as a matter of course by Ted.
At the end of lap 6 Ted was 33 seconds up on Malcolm but now only 1 minute 16 ahead of the chasing pack of 9 riders in Group 2. Group 3 were now 1½ minutes behind Group 2. Lap 7 had Ted's lead now at 50 seconds ahead of Malcolm with the chasing Group 2 now under 1 minute behind with little chance of catching the leader given the number of laps to go. Lap 7 had a "King of the Hills" prize which Ted mopped up as well.
At the finish Ted crossed the line with a comfortable 27 seconds gap to Peter Bryson who lead Group 2 over the line. Martin McAnulty was third just ahead of Jonathan McBride with John Shanks 5th and Malcolm MacDonald 6th. Tom McClean and Ryan Mallon finished 7th and 8th respectively. Barry Kellett had pulled away from Group 3 with David Chambers chasing strongly to finish in the top 10. Unfortunately Zak Hanna, who had been riding well in Group 2, crashed on the final corner. Like Tommy he only suffered cuts and bruises but was determined to finish the race so we carried his damaged bike across the line.
Once all were finished there was a prize giving ceremony. The overall winner, Ted McKibbin, was presented with a bottle of champagne which he duly shook up and sprayed his fellow riders on the podium as well as those gathered around. Barry Kellett got the 'most aggressive rider' award. Many thanks to Gavin for making this a special event. Hopefully we will have more like it in future. Many thanks to the timekeepers and to the marshals.
Next Thursday (19 July 2012) will be the rescheduled 25 and 16 mile time trials. See website for details (www.dromaracc.co.uk).
Timekeeper: Aaron McGrady and Martin Grimley
Timekeepers assistant: Gavin Magowan
Marshals: Chris Magowan, Stephen Younge, Ronnie Smyth, and Stephen Gabbey as well as David McKnight (unattached).
Photographs: Gavin Magowan
Report: Martin Grimley
