Chairman claims Road Club’s veterans’ championship title

The Cromkill Road man successfully defended the title he won in 2014 for the first time.

The Henderson cup, for the veterans’ BAR, which was introduced for the 1999 season, is awarded to the rider with the best overall age standard performance.

Each rider is given a universally recognised “par” or standard time for each distance depending on his or her age, and the one with the biggest overall accumulated total time is the winner.

John’s best performances in the Northstone sponsored series of club races for the 2015 season were: 10 miles, 25 minutes 24 seconds on 19th August at Woodgreen. This beat his age standard for a 65 year old by 5 minutes 36 seconds.

John’s 25 miles time was 65 minutes 34 seconds, which was recorded on 12th August in the Combat Cancer cup event on the Woodgreen, Dunsilly, Ballee course. This beat his standard time by 13 minutes 56 seconds.

At 50 miles John clocked 2 hours 13 minutes 40 seconds in the Sam McQuigg cup event on 15th July, again on the A26 Woodgreen circuit.

This was the decisive time for John as he beat standard by a massive 30 minutes 10 seconds.

When all three times are added up his winning total is plus 49 minutes 42 seconds. This represents an improvement for John whose winning total in 2014 was 48 minutes 14 seconds. John also finished ninth in the club’s time trial handicap league in 2014.

Bobby Currie won the Henderson Cup during its first season in 1999, and also in 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Sammy Kerr won for the first time in 2002 and was successful again in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008 and when Sammy won in 2009 it was with a record breaking performance of plus 71 minutes 10 seconds.

In 2013 Michael Carroll became the first rider, other than Bobby Currie and Sammy Kerr to win when he also set a new competition record time of “Plus” 1 hour 12 minutes 07 seconds for the three distances of 10, 25 and 50 miles.