Enjoying the sunshine with Slievenamon in the background
When organising a cycling event, one of the most crucial aspect of the event is the one that the organizers can do nothing about: the weather. So when there was one more job added to the ‘To Do’ list, the organizers had no problem adding ‘Buy suncream’ to the list. It was promising to be a bright warm day and the weather gods didn’t disappoint.
It was great to see the number of cyclists from outside the Club has increased by four times for this event, with one lad, Stephen Gallagher, even travelling all the way from Newry. There were also cyclists from the Comeragh CC, Barrow Wheelers, boards.ie, Waterford, Dublin, Carlow and of course Kilkenny.
After sign-on and brief instructions from the boss man, the cyclists hit the Dublin road to start off the second Marble City 200. On the way to our first food stop, Pat Murray kept himself busy taking some good snaps of the cyclists climbing their way out of Borris. The first stop was at the Ferry Bridge, where Pat Murray was on hand again to setup an excellent foodstop. There definitely wasn’t going to be complaints for shortage of food and liquids with Pat laying out buns, cakes, tea, coffee, bananas, water to bate the band. Despite being from Wexford and living in Kilkenny, Nicky almost missed this stop on the Wexford/Kilkenny border and would have headed towards Rosslare and God knows where else except for some sprinting by Patrick Tobin to bring back to route!
The next third of the route brought the cyclists through Inistiogue, Thomastown, Knocktopher, Kilmoganny, Carrick on Suir and then to our next food stop at Ikes and Mikes, where Sylvia had a great spread waiting for the boys. Since this was midday, sun-cream was definitely in demand with the sun now sweltering at 25 degrees plus. For a change in Ireland, the boys were happy to go inside for the shade from the sun instead of rain!! Pat Murray scored the event a few brownie points by providing some High5 carbohydrate powder for the riders, which went down very well. With the pleasurable day that was in it, everyone headed off for the last third in high spirit.
The group makes its way out of Borris
After some hard riding through Kilsheelan, Fethard and Killenaule, the cyclists were glad to take a breather at the last stop at the old Ballingarry creamery. Cans of cokes were drank in seconds by riders wanting to both quench their thirst and get a kick for the last leg. A speedy finish by the group back to the IWA building, were the staff had an excellent spread waiting for the tired but very satisfied riders. All in all, the punters seem to be happy as they took a well deserved rest sitting out in the sun.
Photos are now up on our Facebook page. Many thanks to all those who helped on the day, including Pat “the Deise Dynamo” Murray for being the photographer/back-up support/food and liquid provider/motivator for the day, Slyvia of Mikes and Ikes for putting on a great spread and an big massive thanks goes to the good people of IWA who again exceeded our expectations in assisting us in this event. Of course, we can’t go without giving a mention to the riders on the day, we hope to see you next year and make sure to bring that good weather with you again!
