Wheelers Take to The Blooms for Pat Colgan Memorial

(By Mark Monaghan)

With the Wheelers sending groups of cyclist both north and south this weekend to take part in the Lap the Lough & the An Post Sean Kelly Tour if Waterford respectively, we still managed to recruit a group of over 20 riders to make the short trip over to our neighbours in Tullamore to take part in the Pat Colgan Memorial Cycle.

On what was a glorious morning for cycling we set off from the excellent H.Q of Tullamore Harriers in the direction of Mountmellick with a nice tailwind to push us along. From Mountmellick we turned right to bring us to Clonaslee to what we were all looking forward too….. The dreaded “Cut” and the even tougher “Wolftrap” mountains. With the every man for himself scenario now enforced, the Wheelers were well represented over the climbs with Robbie Kenny & Ken Berry leading us over both passes and down into Kinnity for a well-deserved refreshment break.

After a lot of refuelling it was on to Birr and then the last 30km into the headwind back to Tullamore. Everybody in the group (of at least 60 riders) was waiting for the hammer to go down and the inevitable happened with about 10km to go at the drag out of Blue Ball and yet again it was every man for themselves back to H.Q where we had some lovely hot showers and some very welcome refreshments.

I would like to congratulate Tullamore CTC for an excellent and well run event, it truly was a great spin.