PODIUM PLACES FOR NORTH DOWN YOUTH CYCLISTS
Over the past two seasons North Down Cycling Club's youth riders have been consistently in the medals at provincial and national championships and the trend continued last weekend at the Northern Ireland Open time trial championships, hosted by the NICF at a windy Dunsilly course. Top honours went to Rachel Mitchell who won the Under 14 title with a time of 30.50. Having come 6th overall and first female the previous week in the Ulster Youth road race championship, Rachel has confirmed her position as one of the top youth riders in the country.
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15 May 2006
CYCLISTS CRANK UP THE ACTION
May is traditionally a busy month for North Down cyclists. Weekly open races are supplemented by a series of cyclosportive events each weekend, while midweek slots are taken up with the club's own domestic programme of time trials and road races. Add to this the regular Thursday night run for leisure cyclists and you have a schedule of activities to satisfy riders of all abilities. If only the people responsible for providing the weather showed some consideration.
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10th May Road Race
Big thank you to all who turned up for the first club race of the year. Perfect weather, warm, sunny and calm though I thought for a while at the start that the cloud of lime dust that began to float up the road from the field where it was spread was going to be a problem. Fortunately it soon dispersed.
Race Details. 33 starters, 27 of which were NDCC members. Is this a record for recent years? Three laps of an 8 mile circuit, starting and finishing on Springwell Road. Three groups with the start group of 15 riders getting 7 minutes over the scratch group. This group contained all the Espoirs plus most of the youth riders. Eric Blayney was appointed as sergeant major for this group since most had no race experience. Second group had 6 riders, a mixture of old hands like Gordon Simmons, John Hunter, Trevor and Andy T along with young XMTB rider Jonny Beers. They went after 3min 30 secs. The scratch group was strong with eleven experienced road men plus Stuart Henry.
By the end of the first lap the limit group were still mostly together and they came through in 22 mins., a good pace for novices on a course that's not especially fast. The second bunch were just over 2 minutes behind so they had closed up a bit. The scratch group came through just over 4 minutes behind the leaders so they had taken nearly 3 minutes from the lead bunch.
At the end of the second lap the pace had begun to tell on some of the Espoirs and they were down to a working bunch of 7 riders, who once again tapped out a consistent 22 mins for the lap. The second group had been caught and came through 2 minutes later assimilated into the scratch group who had lost Ray Brownfield with a puncture. It was only a matter of time before the scratch bunch caught the limit bunch but Eric and Alan Lavery continued to whip up the group until they were overhauled at the top of Orlock. However, they all managed to stay together until the final push up Springwell Road and Paul Ferguson took the bunch sprint ahead of Anthony Mitchell, Stuart Henry, Jonny Beers, Noel Boyce, Keith Millar, Stephen Bingham and Norman Wilson. It was encouraging to see several Espoirs and youth riders finish in the bunch. Eric was there with Ciaran, Myles and Noel and a rejuvenated Gordon Paul and young Gareth Boyle hung on as well.
Finishing time was 65min 30 secs . This was a fast time for any of the Espoirs who finished in the bunch. The scratch riders completed the 24 miles in 58min 30 secs.
Thanks to Terry, Philip and Brian for marshalling.
cheers, Harry
2 May 2006
TESTING TIMES FOR NORTH DOWN CYCLISTS
With most of North Down's road men enjoying a short period of recovery
after the Tour of the North, club training in Majorca, time trialling
and the Tour of the Glens cyclosportive have been the focus of riders'
attentions over the past ten days.
The club's first 10 mile time trial of the season gave the club's
newest riders the opportunity to make their mark in the hotly contested
Espoirs' competition, a contest for newcomers to competitive cycling.
Leader in the competition, Noel Boyce, was up against his closest rival
Philip Downie but it was Downie who paced himself better to clock
27.59, beating the gold standard time by one second. Fastest on the
night was top veteran tester Declan McMackin who recorded 23.55
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19th April 10 MileTime Trial
| POSITION | NAME | TIME | Standard |
| 1 | D McMackin | 23:55 | |
| 2 | L Curran | 2533 | |
| 3 | P Downie | 27:59 | ( Novice gold standard ) -subject to dope test. |
| 4 | G Swenarton | 28:06 | |
| 5 | E Blayney | 28:51 | ( Novice silver standard ) |
| 6 | M Geddis | 29:03 | ( Novice silver standard ) |
| 7 | N Boyce | 29:11 | ( Novice silver standard ) |
| 8 | M Hodgins | 29:40 | ( Novice bronze standard ) |
| 9 | T Johnston | 29:59 | ( Novice bronze standard ) |
| 10 | G Boyle | 30:24 |
Novice standards: Gold under 28.00, Silver under 29.30, Bronze under 31.00
18 April 2006
TOUR OF THE NORTH COMES TO TOWN
The cycling enthusiasts of North Down CC have had plenty to keep them busy in the past week. The club's very active touring section had its first outing but the main event was, of course, the P&O Irish Sea Tour of the North, Northern Ireland's premier stage race. Blessed with dry weather for the most part a full field of 135 riders battled it out over the four days of the Easter weekend. The prologue at Stormont was a close run thing and it was a Junior rider, Sam Webster of Team Kinesis who snatched the leader's jersey from Ards rider Martyn Irvine at the last minute on Friday evening, winning the tough hill sprint in a time of 2 mins 13secs, just one second ahead of Irvine. Previous winners Tommy Evans and Ryan Connor were only a few seconds behind the leading two and most observers were predicting that it would be Evans and Connor who would be the men to watch, both having recently returned from the Commonwealth Games in good form.
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