Bankhead wins H + M Wilson Cup

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Ryan Bankhead followed up his win in the inter club road race series by taking the honours again, on the same Caddy circuit, last Wednesday evening.

This time it was in the H&M Wilson cup road race which forms part of the club’s Northstone series of club races.

An entry of 31 riders signed on and they were set off, from Slaght Corner, in three groups with zero, two minutes and five minutes starting handicaps. Groups one and two merged at the end of the first lap and this amalgamated bunch continued to make good work of keeping the scratch men at bay.

Unfortunately their progress was interrupted by a fairly serious crash (in cycling terms) on the last lap, when eight riders were involved in a pile up on the Whitesides road. Martin Ruddy faired the worse and he sustained a broken collar bone, broken wrist, shoulder and some ribs. Emma Smyth also fell heavily and has facial injuries and bruising. Their fellow BRC members wish all the injured a speedy recovery.

After the crash three riders – Adrian Kerr, Brian Geddis and Philip McGuigan (Dunloy) broke clear and they opened up what looked like a winning gap. In the final miles down the Caddy road the scratch group continued to close the gap and with half a mile to go to the finish Karl Taylor made a brave bid for victory and he caught and passed the three leaders. However the sprinting pack caught Karl inside the last 300 yards and Ryan Bankhead powered through to win the sprint decisively after 62 minutes 06 seconds racing. Ryan Currie was right with him in second place with Sean Wright third at 2 seconds.

Results H&M Wilson cup road race. (1) Ryan Bankhead 1.02.06 (2) Ryan Currie (3) Sean Wright at 2 seconds (4) Matthew Brennan (5) Connor Young (6) Quinton McFall all at 2 seconds (7) Clifford Grant at 4 seconds (8) Brian Geddis at 6 seconds (9) Nigel Kernoghan (10) Mark Wright at 10 seconds (11) Karl Taylor (12) Tommy Wilson at 20 seconds (13) Adrian Kerr at 24 seconds (14) Simon Taggart at 30 seconds (15) Geoff Allen at 39 seconds (16) Peter Smyth at 1 minute 24 seconds (17) Maeve Savage 12 minutes 04 seconds (18) Derek Dougan (19) David Kennedy (20) Ryan Shaw. Many thanks to everyone who turned up to organise and marshall the race and to the club’s first aider Joan McCullough who, unfortunately, was kept busy once again.