Island Wheelers Cycling Club, Coalisland, Co. Tyrone. Northern Ireland Official website for the Island Wheelers Cycling Club
Saturday 25th June saw 20 hearty Wheelers setoff for the annual away trip, this year to Sligo. An early start seen the pack hit the road for 7.30am with laughs and banter all the way through the counties. Apart from one main drag of a climb through the Iron Mountain range the run itself to Sligo was mostly flat. If there was a king of the mountains jersey it would have been on the back of either Martin Fox or Owen Campbell, each battling up the mountain climb to the misty and beautiful views of the top. It didn’t seem long before 111miles came about and the peloton was rolling into Sligo town and the Park Hotel.
It wasn’t long before most of the group had the lycra off and the speedos on, enjoying the leisure facilities the hotel had to offer. Most popular of the facilities was the iced water plunge pool where most of the riders were making the most of clearing the lactic acid out of their tired limbs by getting in and shivering for 15mins. Hotel staff remarked that it was a record amount of people in the plunge pool at the same time! Funniest moment of the day has to go to Philip McCoubrey who jumped in and within milliseconds had bounced back out with shock of the cold. There’s now a McCoubrey shaped hole in the ceiling tiles directly above the plunge pool!
A fantastic 3 course dinner was then laid on and afterwards some had a couple of well deserved pints to ease their tired bodies.
7am rolled around fast and all riders were up, fresh faced and ready for day 2 cycling – a big fry was put into hungry bellies and the group was on the road again for 8.45am. The peloton had (according to the Garmin computer on this riders bike) travelled a whole 340 yards before the first ice-cream of the day was bought by big Marty O’Donnell. He made it all the way to shop across from the hotel before he needed his sugar rush to get him going on the road. It was his nod to the pleasure team and was tradition he claimed! The climb out of Sligo certainly woke a few riders up quickly and before we knew it were on the road home again. The route home was a slightly shorter more direct route of 90miles in order to get home in time for the football. Tired bodies rolled into town but all had definitely done well – just over 200miles in two days – a great bit of cycling.
Special mentions go to Sheena who done excellently through the two days – day 2 was always going to be harder after the long day 1 so well done to her for keeping going – also special mention goes to a very well improved cyclist Ciaran Talbot who having only joined the club at the start of the year is going from strength to strength and is looking like a very strong cyclist and will only get better. Never once did he look tired through the trip and he made it all look too easy!
A big thanks goes to Marty O’Donnell, Paddy McNally and Owen Campbell who put together the logistics of the weekend – and of course to our own Eddie Polin who drove the van and supported the team there and back. Without these men it wouldn’t have went as smoothly as it did so thanks on behalf of everyone.
