Road Race - Maze Long Kesh site (map)
25 July 2013
Round 17 of Dromara Cycling Club's Thursday night league was a deviation from the scheduled road race at Donaghcloney to a new venue for the club which was the Maze Long Kesh site, former location of the prison. This site has a 2 mile internal road which is only used for the businesses on the site, and, as the club races start after 6:30 pm, there was little to no traffic. The site has been used by other local clubs an is an ideal location for cycling activities.
The riders gathered up around 6:45 to get signed on and allocated into groups. There were 4 groups on the night, Group 1 had just two riders Raymund Martin and Matthew Armstrong. It is a testiment to the wide appeal of cycling that these two riders had an age gap of 54 years yet were able to set off together in a road race.
The next group had nine riders, Brendan Doyle, Graham Beckett, Kevin Walker, Paul Jess, Gareth Kirkwood, David McClurg, Owen McManus, along with junior rider Caolin Owens taking part in his first club event and youth rider Xeno Young (guest).
Group 3 also had nine riders, Jonathan McBride, Stephen Wallace, Trevor Wright, Tommy Downey, Gary Bailie, Nigel Sudlow, Richard Cowan as well as junior riders Nathan Sturrock and Zak Hanna.
The scratch group had 7 riders, Chris & Gavin Magowan, Ronnie Smyth, Nathan Mullan, Ryan Calvert, as well as the recently crowned Irish National Masters (off-road) champion Barry Kellett, and the visitor David Montgomery who is the Irish NationalJunior (off-road) champion.
With such as short, flat circuit and our first time running an event here, the time gaps between the groups was difficult to calculate. The first group had 4 minutes 25 seconds on Group 2 which effectively was one lap. The gap between Group 2 and 3 was 1 minute 35 seconds with the scratch group 4 minutes behind Group 3. The scratch group had a total of 10 minutes to catch up with Group 1.
After one lap of all groups on the road the time gaps had dropped by 40 seconds between Group 1 and 2, 20 seconds between Group 2 and 3 and 30 seconds between Group 3 and 4. Raymund eventually got dropped by Matthew who then picked up Kevin who had been dropped by his group. Matthew and Kevin rode well together although they were one lap apart, but the duo kept their distance from the chasing big group which had formed when Group 2 and 3 merged. Scratch worked hard but couldn't get any closer than 2 minutes from the big group. In the end it was an easy win for Matthew would kept on going over the 10 lap race to finish 27 seconds ahead of the sprint for second place. This was won by Richard Cowan with Gary Bailie close behind and Jonathan McBride close as well.
Well done to all the riders. Many thanks to the timekeepers and marshals. A big thank you to the management at the site for granting permission to race there. We hope to use the site again in the future.
Timekeepers: Colin Roy, Lisa Millar
Marshals : Michael Mullan, Mike Barton, Malcolm MacDonald, Gareth Young (guest)
Report & photos: Martin Grimley
