MTB & Road lead round up

The Under 14 Podium at the MTB League L_R Robert Malone (2nd) Eoin Carthy (1st) Ronan McDonnell (3rd)

 

Tuesday last (April 18th) saw the commencement of Cuchulainn's Mountain Bike League. This year's league is has secured sponsorship from bikefix.ie and 9th Wave Cycles. Round 1 was at Bellurgan's custom off road track and saw Connor Campbell as first man home, to take an early lead in the points table. Second position was PJ Hynes and 3rd place went to Brendan Foley. It was close racing, with less than a minute separating the top 3.
 
This year sees the edition of an underage league to help develop talent in the sport. The honor of being the first winner went to Eoin Carthy, ahead of Robert Malone and Ronan McDonnell. A big bonus on the night was hot dogs served up by Dundak's Scout Brigade! 
 
Meanwhile in The Bike Station Summer league, round 3 saw the action play out on the old Newry Road. Laps of a course that is either extremely fast downhill or extremely hard uphill! In race 1, the scratch group quickly ate into the handicap and by the halfway mark had caught all the groups in front. Not long into the 3rd lap a bunch had formed at the head of the race, when Bryan McCrystal of Team Strata Velo Revolution put in a massive acceleration to forge clear along with Alan Bingham, Gary Gorman & Liam Dolan.
 
This group of 4 continued to put time into all those behind and in the sprint for the win McCrystal was victorious ahead of defending league champion Bingham with Stamullen's Gorman rounding out the podium.
 
In Race 2, again the last group on the road, group 3, caught all those in front of them and it was Cuchulainn's Conor McCrory who took the win, ahead of Armagh Down's Philip Patterson. Another Cuchulainn rider Jamie O`'Hare was in 3rd. it was an impressive sprint from O`Hare, as a group 2 rider he was able to mix it with the stonger group 3 riders on the finishing line. Nuala O`'Donoghue was first lady on the night.
 
On the open racing scene the action moved to Bohermeen in Co. Meath. The main event as a 130km affair & here Liam Dolan in the last 10km bridged the gap to the leading break & took 4th place in the sprint finish. In the A4 event Aaronn McCann came home in 8th place, his first result of the season on the road.