West Coast Wheelers open Road Race

West Coast Wheelers riders made a clean sweep of the podium places of their race on Sunday in Connemara. The course was a 105km tour of some of the toughest roads in the west, and as the weather closed in on the latter stages of the race it was a gruelling challenge to even finish, never mind sprint to the line. The race started at Maam Community Centre, and the first challenge and sprint was for the King of the Hills, at the road leading over the Devil’s Mother to Lough Nafooey. This was a battle between WCW’s Ruaidhrí Geraghty and Galway Bay CC’s Eoghan Considine, both in-form riders. At the top of the hill it was Geraghty who took the honours by only metres. These two had managed to get away from the rest of the bunch at this early stage, but the chasing bunch included three WCW and two Covey Wheelers (Westport) riders. This group of five worked well together and eventually caught the two break-away riders at different points along the Inagh Valley: by the time he was caught, Eoghan Considine had been in the break for almost 70km. At the finish line on the hill from Maam Cross to Maam, there was a sprint finish between WCW’s Brian O’Donnell and Geraghty for the honours, with O’Donnell winning by a bike length. Third finisher was Donncha O’Brien of WCW, Noel Brady of Covey Wheelers getting a hard-fought-for fourth, Kornik Poisch (CCC Polski) took fifth, and Daire Mooney of Eire Óg in Sligo sixth.

West Coast Wheelers would like to thank: Maam Community Centre for the use of their facilities; our club sponsors – Oscars Restaurant, Connemara Gateway Hotel, Pat O’Donnell Sports Massage, West Ireland Cycling, & James O’Donnell Personal Training; the Civil Defence for ambulance cover; Clifden Gardaí & the traffic corps; all the motorbike and roadside marshals; Krystian Matczak & Ger Mooney for photography; Phil & Bridget O’Donnell for catering.

1 Brian O Donnell West Coast Wheelers
2 Ruaidhrí Geraghty West Coast Wheelers
3 Donncha O’Brien West Coast Wheelers
4 Noel Brady Covey Wheelers
5 Kornik Poisch CCC Polski
6 Daire Mooney Eire Og