The holiday week-end was busy for Foyle riders and today’s bank holiday afforded all those cranking up the miles a chance to catch up with domestic duties before resuming the week’s training activity.

By all accounts our road racers really had fun yesterday down at nearby Loughguile and the report from Colin McK is supplemented by a separate brief from ex FCC man Ed Boyle. Check out the email which follows to see how they did!
Saturday’s club run was attended by over 20 riders and once again followed the beautiful roads to the north in Inishowen.
The youth program wrapped up in the afternoon with 11 youngsters taking part in some skills development followed by a testing time trial on the mtb course in Gransha. Well done to all who showed. Judging by the smiles always visible they had a good time. Thanks to Rhonda, Danny X, Eamonn, Maeve, and Brian for helping out. We hope to have further sessions with the youngsters as the seaon develops. An ideal opportunity would be the opening of the Waterside trail on June 02 and/or the National Bike week two weeks later. Whether or not you believe it kids are the future!

On Sunday Foyle riders went several different directions for various events. Ciaran, Brian, Fergal, Dermot, Terry McL, Aideen, Karen, Pauline, and several others travelled to Sligo for the An Post Sligo tour. By all accounts the course for this event takes in some fantastic scenery and hopefully all enjoyed the day out. If anyone has a report would you please reply and I will forward.
As above Colin, Richie and Eamonn headed to the Glens for the open race at Loughguile. The account of their day is forwarded separately.
Finally your scribe and young Geoff R headed for Belfast early on Sunday to take in the always arduous Tour of the Glens. The day started really cold and the early wind-shield frost was a sign of things to come as, although we enjoyed long periods of sunshine on our 210km odyssey, the temperature was often in the low single digits.
The ToG is a challenging event taking in many of the beautiful glens of Antrim and returning to Belfast over some steep climbs near Broughshane and Ballyclare. It is not heavily attended and when we missed the departure of the early bunch due to a flat tyre we felt we might be cycling in tandem for much of the day.
Taking off from the new event location on the Shore Road lead to further confusion as we made several wrong turns on the way north and when we had passed thru Chimney Corner we knew we were well lost. Luckily Geoff is eminently familiar with the intricacies of GPS and Garmin and after a few minutes he had plotted a course for Ballyclare where we rejoined the “traditional” ToG route.
We were now on the way to the coast and village of Ballgalley where we should have found the first refreshment stop. Unfortunately our 7 mile detour and our late arrival meant that there was no one still at the feed point. So after a quick hand in the back pocket we headed north again along the scenic Antrim coast and the first climb up Glenarm.
The wind buffeted us from the NE as we continued as we took in the beautiful scene and we were lucky to meet a cyclist from Larne who helped us along this section before turning for home at Carnlough. Shortly after this I espied an orange two wheeler moving in to our line of fire and when we bridged the gap we saw it was a fellow FCC rider, Ying K.
Ying had a tale to tell of mechanical problems which were readily apparent as his rear cassette was screeching like a cabal of tortured banshees. He was glad to see us and we were now three amigos for the rest of the ride.
After a short detour from the usual route we steamed past the front gates to Gavin’s old school, where we duly raised our helmets in recognition. Now, we hurried on to the food stop at Cushendall hopeful of catching a warm cuppa before tackling Glendun and the arduous circuit of Corkey mountain.
Warmed by the hot brew we headed inland for the mountains and lo and behold passed the first official ToG group of the day who also had had mechanical and route problems. Encouraged by our strengthening pace the upward climb seemed easier than previous years and we summited the two 420 metre peaks of this remote section in good spirits. ready for a fast descent back to Cushendall and more tea!
The weather had a part to play in the steep descent and we needed extreme caution as heavy hail showers lashed our faces and made road conditions treacherous. We survived this change of conditions and once again were back at the food stop where welcoming hands refilled our water bottles and plied us with refreshments before sending us off for the final leg of our journey.
We worked well together on the long climb up Glenarrif past some adventurous campers who were also enjoying the holiday week-end. We were now in Ballymena drumlin country, long, fast running descents followed by leg sapping ascents. There is no place to hide on this course and the last 40 miles are leg sapping. However in truth this is why you cycle!
The three amigos resolve held up and we drove on until we again reached Ballyclare and the final climb towards Glengormley. We found new energy and charged down to the Loughside centre, not before making a further unnecessary detour (sorry lads!), where we revelled in warm showers, fine sandwiches and the welcome of Ying’s family..
It had been a hard’s days fun and one which we had all enjoyed. ToG is a challenging course and completion gives a fine sense of achievement. 210 km, 2400 metres will stand to us in days to come.

See you on the road.
Mark

Mark, please see report from our A4 race team today…. my turn to write it this time… Richie and Eamon were laughing too hard…

A small Foyle A4 race team went to the Ras Loughgiel road race today…we were missing Chris who I think is still training in Spain and Terry doing the big miles training in Sligo…leaving Richie, Eamon and myself to tackle the 50 mile event “considered to be the most exciting A4 circuit in the calendar” according to the entry sheet… I was to find out what this meant later!!!!

The race was 5 laps of a flat’ish circuit for about 30 miles…then into the mountains for approx one 20 mile loop…giving 50 miles in total. Our team arrived early and so we decided to take a drive around the 20 mile loop to see how bad it was… from the car it looked pretty brutal, the statisticians in the car calculated gradients and mileages and tactics….a one mile brutal climb, then a 2 mile decent, then a 3 mile climb, 3 mile decent, then another 3 mile climb….then finally a decent towards the finish line.. all on really nice windy country roads with really awesome scenery…

It turned out that our tactics for the day were pretty much the same as everyone elses… conserve energy on the flat circuits, then get to the front for the first climb into the mountains. A mixture of rain and hailstones softened us up on the flat circuits and keep speeds low’ish and morale down a bit… the bell sounded for the last flat lap then it was into the mountains… 80 riders hit the first hill as one big bunch, and within a mile it was mayhem, the big bunch disintegrated into numerous small bunches..a group of about 12 went over the first hill in the lead, followed closely by a group of about 10 with Eamon in there…then another group of about 10 with Richie and me…then many more small groups. Lots of chasing over the hills saw the lead group stay away and win…with the rest of the groups chasing hard to try and regain contact…. this is were it all went wrong for your scribe…. coming down the mountain in the hail and rain, a 90deg turn was taken with too much exuberance and next thing I saw was tarmac being replaced by heather and finally heather being replaced by black sticky oozing bog… my front wheel sank out of view and I was catapulted into the mire. A motorist stopped and pulled me and my bike out of the bog, and after ascertaining that I was ok, produced a camera and asked if I minded being photo’ed …she was laughing and had been so helpful that I could’nt refuse… I later saw the photo’s of the bog man on the Cycling Ulster website Anyway, wet, frozen, the bogman was undeterred and made it to the finish line in close to last position to extreme laughter….all in good fun of course. In true team spirit Eamon and Richie keep going to ensure our Foyle team was well represented at the finish line, and did the club proud with some great climbing and descending. No podium positions for us today but a truly great race circuit. Until next time…be careful and.. ‘keep it between the hedges’ please…..

Campsie Crit 2012

2 May 2012 Full report

Well, its back!! The Campsie Crit. I know you’ve all been waiting eagerly, I must say it was fantastic to see so many show up for the first night and hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the rest of the spring/summer (or was this 13 degrees with the sun out and blue skies – maybe this was Eglinton’s summer?). There really was a carnival atmosphere about the event and with some great prizes on offer this year and hopefully the introduction of race leader’s jerseys creates a great six weeks racing. As the weeks go by we will do our utmost to place riders in the correct groups and adjust them from week to week depending on results and current form. Week one would always be hard placing groups effectively but after tonight there are a few hidden gems in the ranks and we will do our best to polish them and help them make the jump across to Interclub Racing and maybe even Open Racing.

The following report’s (hopefully) for the papers, if they can fit us in between Derrywell Celtic or the cricket or maybe in the middle of Out and About because technically we are out and about so here goes…

Wednesday evening last saw the first T. McLaughlin & Sons Ltd. Campsie Crit get under way under great spring conditions, with a fantastic turnout of twenty nine riders that included two women for the ladies race. The race was run under handicapped conditions with the women starting first only one minute ahead of group two followed by group three, two minutes later and the last group four a further two minutes back. It was great to see a host of new faces turn up for their first ever fray into club racing and up for grabs was a new best newcomer’s red jersey. Also, for the first time was a race leader’s yellow jersey for the men and leaders pink jersey for the women worn at each event by the points leader (with points awarded to the top six in each race).

Group one, led by last years leading lady Rhonda Reilly and newcomer to the women’s race Olive Watts worked well together to hold off the chasing pack lead by club captain and chairman Mark Moroney. Mark had his group two working efficiently together (with a lot of new guys here that were a lot stronger than they let on when they were asked at sign on!). This certainly worked to their advantage as they managed never to be caught by group three. Group three, led by the very strong Fergal McGeady, making his first appearance at Campsie, Dermott Kelly and Brian McLaughlin – these guys have a lot of club racing experience and used their racing knowledge to work well together and hold off the ever advancing group four. The final group was made up of all club riders that take part in Open Racing and hold a full racing licence. This group had last years winner Lawrence Watson and runner up Colin McKenna and Campsie sensation Richie Sheerin who also took 3rd in 2011 at the Crit.

The race was run over 12 laps totalling 22.22miles at a very fast pace and run in under one hour. The home straight was the hardest part of the course as the strong head wind made it difficult for groups nearing the end of the race. Group four took five laps to catch up with its first group on the road but by this stage had lost a few riders and was now made up of Simon Gill, Aaron Deane, Colin McKenna and Lawrence Watson and as they caught Group three they decided to attack them and doing this they broke up the group but now they had lost McKenna and were joined by strong man Ciaran Hampson and had now set about working together to catch the final group on the road.

The final group leading the way was now reduced in size a little but they had previous years ladies winner Rhonda Reilly who was too strong for Olive Watts who was still riding extremely with some of the tailed off newcomers men. The final group was well marshalled by Mark Moroney and Martin Watts and had everyone working together and taking their fair turn at the front and with such strong riders like Larry McGowan and David Hughes they forged ahead relentlessly. With three laps to go the catch was now made by Deane, Gill and Watson and as they’d done on the previous group they once again showed their experience and attacked the remaining leading guys and it was to their surprise that newcomer James Keegan was able to latch on to the back of them and despite many efforts on the final 2 laps they could not easily remove him and it came down to the final mile when it really split.

On the final bend time trial specialist Aaron Deane attacked his escapees and went for the long solo while Simon and Lawrence tried to chase but with no joy only managing to tail off Keegan in the final few hundred metres. Deane took 1st place closely followed by a sprint for 2nd taken by Watson just a few inches ahead of Gill and 4th for the best newcomer Keegan. The final two places came down to a bunch sprint between the guys in group two and it was another two new men that took these places 5th David Doherty and 6th James McCafferty. These three new guys have done themselves proud on the evening and will be moved up to group three for the next race. Martin Watts had an outstanding 7th place. The final group still had bragging rights to race for and still made an interesting finish and it was a close call between Fergal McGeady and Gary O’Donnell.

So, a great night’s racing by all involved. Some other great performances on the night were had by; Peter McParland (only making his second appearance) and Geoff Reilly starting his first race in the stronger group three after riding the previous year in group two, Stephen McKee also rode well and was only tailed off group two with two laps to go, Gerrard McGeehan and Dermott Kelly rode very strong in their group and managed the 12 laps without fuss. Terry McLaughlin and Eamon Doherty rode well in the opening laps in their first step up to group four and but soon found the pace too much along with Richie Sheerin and this will provoke a few moves in the groups for the next race. A great ride by some other newcomers; Michael Allen, Corby Brown, and David Hughes who all took on the course with no problems and will for sure be back for more and try and win that Red or maybe even the yellow jersey?
Big thanks to marshals, time keeper Ryan Reilly, lead car with Dawson Hinds and daughter and supporters that came out tonight and also to our sponsor T. McLaughlin & Sons Ltd. The next race is on May 30th. Also a mention and thanks to The Coffee House who have sponsored the Club 3 day race on May 22nd-24th.

Results

Men
1st Aaron Deane 10pts
2nd Lawrence Watson 7pts
3rd Simon Gill 5pts
4th James Keegan 3pts (Best Newcomer)
5th David Doherty 2pts
6th James McCafferty 1pt

Women
1st Rhonda Reilly 10pts
2nd Olive Watts 7pts

Lawrence Watson
FCC Race Secretary