It was a full house for the second road race of the Lakeland Cycling Clubs road race league on Wednesday night last, with 40 riders taking to the start line.

The fast 22 mile circuit from Enniskillen-Blacklion-Florencecourt and finishing at the three ways junction has nearly always ended in a bunch sprint, and so many expected Lakeland rider Mark McGirr to be fighting for the victory.

With a great record of winning bunch sprints Mark was many riders ‘man to watch’ for the night.

As the race started the usual time gaps were enforced and each group set about working cohesively to try and stay away from the large group in scratch. As it turned out groups two and three on the road were caught not long after the left turn in Blacklion and promptly formed a large group of 30 or so riders on the road. They still had the small matter of catching the front group though.

The front group contained about 10 riders and they worked extremely well together, Brian Armstrong of Mallard flyers along with Lakeland’s Gareth McCormick Cahal Conlin and Mark Cavanagh pushed hard with Trillick’s’ Stephen Campbell also loving his second ever race.

Ex Lakeland riders Aoibheann Bartley and Adrian Dunlop were also working well within this front group and they lasted until the left turn after Florencecourt before being caught.

There were also attacks within the large pursuant group with the Caldwell’s riders attacking over Florencecourt hills, a move initially shut down by Three Peaks’ rider William McFarland with the final jump by Lakeland’s own Mark McGirr.

Once order was resumed and the whole bunch came together Nigel Foster (LCC) attacked and went on a solo run, a rider many would have been wary of because Nigel has a great reputation as a time-triallist.

This move was brought back in by the bunch , only for them to watch Lakeland’s Niall Murphy and Kyle Fisher launch another attack, teaming up to try and break the elastic approaching the final kilometre.

Michael McGlynn of Caldwell Cycles did the hard yards to pull this attack back and Mark McGirr then launched his final sprint some 300-400 metres from the line.

Emyvale rider Paul Brady, making a welcome return to racing after several years away, was the man who had played the smartest hand though. The Monaghan based rider got onto McGirr’s wheel and then outpaced him with a great sprint over the last 150 metres to take the win. McGirr held onto second with Caldwell’s man Ruairi Power sprinting hard for a great third.

Another great night’s racing on the Fermanagh roads and huge appreciation from all the visiting riders for the excellent organization.