Club Spin 14th Jan

With quite a few riders crying off before Saturday it was not expected that the groups would be as large as last week. However 13 riders assembled outside the Maldron with some old and new faces making up for the missing in action. 10 riders therefore formed the racing group, while Mick Moore led out 3 in the recently renamed touring group.

While some of our older members may remember the Trip to Tipp for Feile, StTiernans also has a yearly rite of passage known as the Trip to Trim and as we had a decent sized group it was decided that this was the day to make it.

We headed out on the road to Cellbridge at a decent pace taking care on what were very greasy roads. I took particular care on the corners especially after Brendan advised me on how bad the tyres I had just got were in the wet. Out of cellbridge, while frost lingered in places, the roads improved and dried out as the sun appeared. As we were stopped crossing the maynooth road we met a group of Lucan riders heading towards barberstown. We continued on and took a back road into kilcock. With a big group it was decided to leave the bumpy slippy back roads behind and head out the main road to summerhill. This is a well surfaced road and it wasn’t long before we were arriving into town and decision time for some of the group.

Options were weighed up and after much soul searching Paul, Dave and Neill decided to turn back while the seven remaining pressed on towards Trim undeterred by the loss in numbers. We made good progress and the 10k to Trim were covered very quickly. Without stopping we took the Batterstown road and some up and over riding saw us quickly reach the turn for the sheds circuit. We turned off here and a quiet back road saw us run parallel to the main road arriving at the village of Drumree. Back on the main road we arrived in Batterstown, pointing out the finish line of the club races to some of the newer members while reliving past glories and crashes. Everyone was still riding strongly at this stage although we were now beginning to realize why we had made it to Trim so quickly as a steady headwind faced us all the way home. We passed the sign on spot for the club races at Black Bull and pressed on towards Dunboyne. A quick stop at the garage and the back roads helped keep us out of the wind as we reached the Park at Farmleigh. Mark left us at this stage to head back through Lucan.Next to depart was Brendan as he turned at the Monument leaving 5 to press on through the city. Joe Mick and Robert turned on the keys while myself and Trevor struggled up the dual carriageway to Stillorgan, the headwind fighting us all the way. A tough 130k covered and as Brian Kilbride would say “if it’s grim it must be Trim”

by Eamon Peregrine