Another bitter cold Tuesday evening and the first 2UP of the season. For the first time ever riders got to choose to their own partners. This lead to the many inevitable "dream teams" and much "hush-hush" strategies. Emma Kerr found out last minute that McGuicken had ditched her for the fast recovering Kettyle. Poor Paul Carroll found himself left on the shelf (and him the best catch in town) and hence could not be counted in the results. We have to very strict with the rules in these cases :)
The portents were not good when Carl King crashed on his cycle up the Carryduff Layby. No fancy Kiwi Irish dancing balancing skills could save him from falling off. Worse was to come later with a touching of wheels on the road into Ballygowan between David Morrisey and Ali McConnell. Both riders came down badly; David went off to casualty and has a confirmed broken collar bone and Ali has been left with road rash and a bruised hip.
Reminder: Sunday is the Tom Donnellys memorial cycle.
Results
1 Vaughan Purnell & Cormac McGarry 28.18 2 Matt Allum & Anton McDonald 28.45 3 Conor McKenna & Eoin Lennon 30.25 4 Johnny Hooper & Davy Calvert 30.27 5 Dave Lonnen & Judith Lowry 30.54 6 Kieran McVeigh & Mark Millar 31.26 7 Niall Magee & Colm Hanratty 31.37 8 Willie Noteman & PJ McQuillan 33.38 9 Wes Kettyle & Peter McGuicken 35.36 10 Aisling Trainor & Aisling Allum 35.52 11 Maeva Cieslik & Chris Fleming 36.03 - Ali McConnell & Emma Kerr DNF - Clifford Rodgers & David Morrissey DNF - Paul Carroll 27.54
Thanks to Peter and Ed for time keeping.