Regency Cars Northern Ireland Championships

‘That was a real All-Ireland Road Race Championship course. There wasn’t one mile where you didn’t have to ride hard.’ was Joe Barr’s first comment after completing the 74 mile North Down Grand Prix, which incorporated the Northern Ireland Championships. As most cycling aficionados would know, this Commonwealth medallist has seen a few courses in his time, in fact he has just returned from Portugal where he won the mountains classification and age category in the UCI World Tour event, the Gran Fondo Eddy Merckx. Such acclaim by such an experienced cyclist is high praise indeed, but few on the North Down course yesterday would disagree with what has been viewed as a whole day of bike racing at the very highest level.

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TOP CYCLISTS HEAD FOR BANGOR

Top cyclists from home and overseas will be heading to Bangor on Sunday when North Down Cycling Club hosts the North Down Grand Prix which this year incorporates the Northern Ireland road race championship. A full programme, co-ordinated by Tom Henry, will see a morning session for Youth, A4 and Over 50 riders and an afternoon session given over to a Women’s race and the North Down GP. Northern Ireland titles are up for grabs in the Youth, Women’s and mens’ Senior race. Race headquarters once again are at Donaghadee rugby club from where riders will roll out to the start line on the Warren Road. The morning races will get under way from 10.15am and the senior women and men start at 12.30pm.

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TOUGH TOURS FOR LOCAL CYCLISTS

It’s not often that the Easter and May Day holidays occur on consecutive weekends and while this is welcomed by the population in general, for competitive cyclists it means six days of top level racing at an intensity not often experienced in such a short period of time.

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