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Strong ride by Louth Team in Tour of Ulster
The Louth Cycling Team had their final warm up before the An Post Rás, which starts May 19th and runs for 8 days, covering over 1,500km. The Tour of Ulster was a 4 stage, 3 day event held over the May bank holiday weekend. On Saturday's first stage, Roger Aiken, who last rode for the Louth Team back in 2005, was part of the winning break & with less than 2km to go jumped away from his break away companions to take the win & the first yellow jersey of the race. The next stage, held that afternoon, was a short 4km time trial & while unfortunately Aiken lost the jersey, the Louth team had 2 men in the top 10 with Bryan McCrystal in 5th & Colm Quinn in 9th. Sunday's action moved to the Antrim city of Lurgan, where Aiken was again in the thick of the action but was unable to reclaim his jersey, which new rested on the shoulders of Team Aqua Blue's Joe Fenlon. Fenlon, a very experienced rider, is the current National Vets Champion. Everything came down to Monday's final stage & team manger, Dominic O'Brannagain, came up with a strategy to try & see Aiken take the overall win. Louth Riders Colm Quinn, Ultan Coyle & Ray O'Shaughnessey set a good pace early on & then the team put McCrystal & Aiken into the break. Yellow jersey Fenlon missed the break & put his formidable Aqua Blue team on the front to try & haul Aiken back. Over the mountainous 140km course the chase continued & with some 20kms to go McCrystal & Aiken had dropped everyone else & pressed on alone. In the end, they couldn't quite gain back enough time, however the pair did stay away for the Louth Team to take their second stage win of the weekend, with McCrystal crossing the line with arms aloft & Aiken ending up second overall. Meanwhile in the Bradford International Race Eve McCrystal, riding for the Leinster team, had a lot of bad luck being involved in an accident on the first day & puncturing on the second day. She did recover to put in a strong ride in the individual time trial to finish in 9th place & help her team to a strong ride in the team time trial.
