Fintan Ryan uses his explosive track speed to win Stage 1 of the Victus TOU in Banbridge today!

After stage 1 huge gap appears with only 19 riders in contention for the pink jersey now as the bunch got more than 11 minutes deficit and lot of big names out of the game already.

Sorry for the lateness of this report as my back is playing up and I needed a lay down when arriving home from Banbridge. My job was announcing the proceedings before the race and put some tunes out to entertain the cavalcade before the start at the Banbridge Rugby Club car park, and the same at the finish line updating the waiting crowd. The race went off 12 noon and a tailwind saw the riders reaching the coast in Rostrevor in record time (first hour was over 30 miles an hour!!) About 20 riders went up the road and never been seen again by the bunch who give up chasing very early in the race and soon the time gap went over the 4 minutes and the bunch was sitting up and in the end a massive gap of 11 minutes been served. The race was upfront and 5 riders made some separation but never got more than 30 seconds to the other 14 who chased hard but to no avail in the end…A very misleading uphill finish saw the power of Track International star Fintan Ryan (Cycling Leinster) getting the better of Powerhouse Sports Lindsay Watson the man in form up North and English Upshift Velo’s James Jobber a very close 3rd. 2016 TOU winner Conor Hennebry (Dan Morrissey) who had been very dangerous all day was 4th and Matthew Clark (Foran) 5th. 14 seconds later Mark Dowling ( Cycling Leinster) won the sprint of the chasers. Tomorrow they have another day in the Mourne Mountains with the Spelga Climb as the biggest climb on Sunday’s menu. The KOH jersey is on Lindsay’s shoulders in the morning and with 7 climbs he will have his work cut out defending this wonderful-looking jersey made by his team sponsor and provider of all winning jersey’s “Powerhouse Sport” Tomorrow’s stage is 150km long and will we see maybe a rider who didn’t featured in the break today having a go as nothing else to win anymore apart from stage wins now for most of them who lost out today.