Hayden stars at end-of-season awards

Long-suffering club veteran Brian Hayden walked away with the top prize at Saturday night’s special edition end-of-season awards bash, commemorating 30 years of St. Tiernan’s cycling.

On a memorable night at the ely bar and brasserie in the CHQ Building, four awards were dished out with each winner receiving and ultra-cool head-set cap, customised by Kapz.co.uk to display their new title and hard-earned stripes.

First up was Lawrence Clifford, who had to be hood-winked into popping in for the afters to pick up his Newcomer of the Year cap. Clifford, from across the water, has taken the racing sector by storm this year and proven a popular member of the Saturday spins too, if a little prone to causing heartbreak with his immense climbing power.

Next was Helen Kerrane, voted Tourer of the Year after annihilating all the maillot violet’s men – and most of the other men – at Liege-Bastogne-Liege and going on to complete the 600km Red Line, Red Lane audax over two days and take on women’s internationals stage race Ras na mBan with the Joes Daly Cycles team. Next year her one goal is to qualify and compete in the Paris-Brest-Paris randonee.

Both those victories were achieved in a landslide, but the voting for Racer of the Year was even more unanimous with Fergal May taking the cap by a majority from James Quinn and Martin Vereker. May’s exploits in time-trials, stage races and the inter-club league have been well-documented in these pages and beyond and next year should see him progress to racing in A2 category.

The closest voting was for Club person of the Year with secretary Daragh O’Toole, ‘encouraging, helpful, an all-round champ’, route-master Kevin McNamee, ‘an asset to the club is an understatement’ and racing secretary Richie Gallagher, ‘the results speak for themselves’, featuring highly.

But it was Brian Hayden who fitted the Kapz.co.uk cap to his shiny Look.