Tour of North Cuchullain Cycling Club

The Tour of the North is a 4 Day International Bike Race held over the Easter Weekend for the last 5 decades, former winner's include Sean Kelly and current Irish professional Philip Lavery. This year for the first time ever Cuchulainn have entered a team in the shape of Peter Tomany, Owen Martin, Gerry McCabe, Colm Quinn, Liam Dolan and guest rider from Bohermeen Chris Reilly. Chris is well known in the club haven taken the visitors prize in the league the last 2 seasons.

Stage 1 was a short 1km prologue up the hill at Stormont Castle, an extremely short and hard effort. The stage was won by Belgian based Peter Hawkins, originally from Belfast. Third fastest on the night was Cuchulainn's Chris Reilly, an exceptional result by the rider. The next most distinguished result for the club was second....last by Liam Dolan. The other Dundalk riders faired considerably better than Dolan.

Stage 2 was a 105km stage from Portadwon to Ballymena with a Cat 1 climb at the 80km mark and a longer though not as steeep Cat 2 12km from home. From the gun Colm Quinn was active and attempted a number of breakaways but was ultimately unsuccesful. Liam Dolan also tried his luck on the second climb of the day getting away with a Belgian rider but the attempt was short lived. Gerry McCabe, and Peter Tomany were very comfortable in the main bunch, while Chris Reilly spent a good part of the day up the road in the chase group, which was ultimately caught and Chris suffered late on for his efforts. Owen Martin was having a superb ride but bad luck struck when less than a 1km from home he slipped his chain and was not creditited with the same time as the bunch.

Stage 3 is a hilly 125km in Limavady on Easter Sunday, before another 120km stage on Easter Monday. Stay tuned for updates![[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"132","attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter size-medium wp-image-217","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"300","height":"224","alt":""}}]]