Team Cuchulainn at the Tour of Meath 2016.

By David Sloan

What a day, 19 of us from Cuchulainn entered the Tour of Meath 2016 which was a tougher and more challenging route than last year. Three members did the 160 route and 13 of us did the 100km and 3 did the 50km so, well done to all and also a big well done to Pat’s Saturday Morning Coffee Cycle who turned out in great numbers. Pat Kilboy, you should be proud.

As we were driving to Trim, it was raining very heavily and I was asking myself, should we stay or should we go (as in home) when the lovely Evelyn Cusack of Met Eireann came on the radio to assure us that while there will be showers, it will be dry in Leinster with possible sunshine. Well, Evelyn, it didn’t quite turn out like that. Mind you, it wasn’t as bad as last year, it did rain though on and off but we all coped well. There was a great atmosphere and razzmatazz at the start with lively music blaring out and a great MC getting the crowd going. A local councillor started the whole sportive and as we were going through the starting point, we got a great mention with U2’s song “Where the streets have no name” was being played out to the crowd of cyclists passing by.
There was a big turnout of cyclists and conditions were difficult with the rain and wet roads. We did our best to keep everyone in our group together. There seem to be more hills this year than 2015. The crowd thinned out as we got further away from Trim. After 60km, we got to our lunch stop where we were fed very well with pasta, noodles and sandwiches and a lovely cup of tea. Have to say, the lunch stop was well organised and everyone seemed to be happy. So well done to the organisers.