The Lakeland road race league continued on Wednesday evening last with round four over a hilly route from Lack, through Drumquin to Castlederg and returning to Lack via Ederney.

This was yet another popular event with over 40 entries and again another strong field with a raft of A3 riders occupying the middle group and scratch containing local favourites Mark McGirr, Conor Sprice and the in-form Kyle Fisher along with Darnel Moore and Michael McGlynn of team Caldwell Cycles.

With a long route and wide roads the front two groups merged to form one large group but with only a three minute gap over the large group two their work was cut out on the hilly terrain.

Indeed, this group was caught between Drumquin and Castlederg, and with the climb of Scraghey approaching most of the middle group riders were hoping to get over it before Scratch caught them.

This was not the case, unfortunately, and the pace set by Scratch over the climb broke up the peloton.

A good sized group did form on the descent, however, and a lull in proceedings allowed a lot of riders to re-join and get towed down to Ederney.

However, once Lack approached Darnell Moore injected the pace again.

The Lakeland trio of Fisher, Sprice and McGirr stayed on the wheels for a while, however, the elastic broke towards Mills Hill and only Jamie Meehan, the young VC Glendale Academy rider, was able to stay with Moore. In the final sprint for the line, Meehan managed to outpace Moore to take a fantastic scalp and the victory.

The podium was rounded off by Michael McGlynn of Team Caldwell, with Conor Sprice (LCC) and Kyle Fisher (LCC) respectively completing the top five. Another great night on the road race calendar.

Lakeland’s Fergus McGirr was back at it again the very next night along with Seamus McGovern in the West Tyrone Road series and had a fantastic night on the bike placing fifth in another high class event, and the week was rounded off with a raft of Lakeland men travelling to take part in the Noel Teggart Memorial race out of Banbridge on Sunday.

A tight technical course resulted in a fraught affair with several crashes, thankfully avoided by all the Lakelend men but nonetheless sad to see, and best wishes to all the cyclists involved.

The best result on the day was a seventh place for new man Rory Gamble in the A4 event with Danny Browne safely in the bunch, although Seamus McGovern rode strongly in the bunch sprint in the A3 event and Fisher was unlucky to miss out on the unplaced A2 podium after staying in the high class A1 field all day. The A1/A2 event was won by Daire Feeley who just outsprinted Mark Downey.