Wednesday 26th July saw Banbridge CC return to the Annaclone race circuit. With thunder and Lighting and raining cats and dogs. With me hiding in a bus shelter I was very tempted to return head back home. The weather then at 6.40pm started to improve so decided to head on down to the start line. With the poor weather conditions there was 10 brave souls to sign on, with 9 BCC riders and 1 guest from Shimna Wheelers.

Brian Wilson, Ruth McKee and Paul Hannigan off in the first group with a 7 minute head start it wasn’t going to be easy to close that time gap. 2nd group saw a welcome return of Don Travers out to rest his running legs, last week’s winner Chris Burns, Christopher Neill (guest rider) and Neil McAlister. The scratch group only contained Dan Purdy, Marty Fitzpatrick and Stevie Fitzsimmons. So closing all the time gaps was going to be hard tonight.

The groups where working well together over the first 2 laps but unlucky for Marty he got a puncture in his new Zipp wheels that ruled him out of the race. With the start of the last lap the 2nd group had caught Ruth and Paul but Brian was still over 3 minutes in the lead. The scratch group where about to make the junction to the second group as they dropped down to Katesbridge on the last lap. It was into a head wind to the finish and still no sign of Brian. The large group pushed hard to the finish to see if they could get Brian in their sights but he was gone. Brian Wilson taken a brilliant solo win. So it was down to a bunch sprint for 2nd which took the sting out of the sprint with Shimna’s Christopher Neill taking 2nd and Chris Burns 3rd continuing his great form of late.

Thanks to all the wet time keepers and marshals done a brill job on a far from glorious Wednesday evening    

 

NMcA