Derry junior Ryan Reilly showed a clean pair of wheels to the best senior riders in Ulster on Sunday but only got the junior title as reward. (Photo: Drew Millar)
By Gerard Cromwell
Derry youngster Ryan Reilly took the biggest victory of his fledgling career on Sunday when he outfoxed some of the biggest names on the domestic scene to take the Ulster road race championships in Donegal.
Reilly attacked a five man group containing an in-form elite trio of Ronan McLaughlin (Dig Deep Coaching), Conor Murphy (Caldwell Cycles) and Ali Macauley (Phoenix) in the final kilometres and soloed away to finish 30 seconds clear at the line.
“It started off as usual with everyone attacking,” says the Foyle rider.
“Early on, Ronan McLaughlin and Rory Maguire (Phoenix) got up the road and got a significant enough gap.
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“A few attacks went over the main climb and I just followed the wheels and a group of about 12 of us got away and started chasing.
“But it wasn’t working together very well. There were plenty of fellas sitting on.
“I said to one of the other juniors in the group, Darnell Moore (Caldwell Cycles), that I was going to attack. I attacked and he came with me and my teammate Lawrence Watson.
“Lawrence did a quite a lot of work for me to try and get me across to Ronan and Rory.
“Eventually he pulled us across and a couple of other guys, Conor Murphy and Ali Macauley came up a bit after that and that was the break then.”
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A crash in one of the other races however saw the break stopped on the road shortly after but with the time gaps restored the racing continued after a few minutes.
With a selfless Watson having paid for his efforts near the end, Reilly found himself alongside Murphy, Macauley, McLaughlin, Maguire and Moore in the last 10km.
“There were attacks going all over the place and with about 3km to go, on the flat road, I attacked. I looked behind me and saw that I had a gap and just kept riding. I looked behind again and saw them attacking each other, so I was hoping they’d keep messing about and I’d have a chance.”
Although he’s only been racing for a season and a half, Reilly has by his own admission come on ‘in leaps and bounds’ this year after taking on former national coach Paddy Doran to help him with his training program.
After winning the A3 races at the season opening Phoenix GP and the Cicli Sports GP, Reilly then took the A2 prize at the Tour of the Mournes. But Sunday’s victory against the best elites in Ulster is the biggest of his career thus far.
“It’s only my second year racing,” he says.
“I was playing football and my dad just started cycling. He talked me into going out on a few club runs and it started from there.
“Having Paddy Doran coach me has definitely helped a lot this year. Compared to last year I’m leaps and bounds better and am super pleased with how I’m going at the minute.”
The 18-year-old from Derry has the Junior Tour of Ireland to look forward to next month.
“I’m on the Ulster team for sure at the minute. I don’t know if I’d make the Irish team for the Junior Tour, but I’d love to get on an Irish team if the opportunity came up.”
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