An ode to "Mc Crystal's Cycling Track" by cycling poet, and Old Velo co-founder Brendan Hennessy from the Cork area, this after his first visit to this wonderfully "ready to go venue" in Jenkinstown Co-Louth (Sat 30th December)

Sing along to MCCRYSTAL’S AT NEW YEARS’
(to the tune of McAlpine’s Fusiliers)

As down the bank came McCrystal’s men
With their mini-diggers making off-cambers
‘Twas in Belgium they saw ’em
And stacked their track with drops and dangers
They sweated mud and made a flood
With barrels and tankers of water
And now we’re face down in the ground again
McCrystals at New Years’

I chanced by chance into McCabe and Bingham
Their stripes and shamrocks showin’
But it took McEntee from Monaghan
to show me where I was goin’.

McCrystal’s God in these Northern parts
You should know that if you’re comin’
They have a tent, a tap a Dany and a Toby
McCrystal’s at New Years’.

I remember the day that Colville won
Shod with a set of gravel tyres
What the rest of us said, when he saw him ahead
Well, it wasn’t what the UCI call thirty threes
‘It’s a gentlemen race’ was his one retort
As the older men took off before us
When the going gets tough,
Well you can never complain enough
McCrystal’s at New Years’

I worked so hard to make a yard
By pushing and pulling and ploughin’
On shuddering drops I came close to a stop
But the ground just kept on comin’
We pedalled hard and I’ve lost my hard
Won ham and turkey belly
If you’ve pride to lose, don’t stop to choose
McCrystal’s at New Years’.
A little song for the end of the OldVelos year all thanks to McCrystals CX Track