Carlisle Cycling Association’s Summer evening series reached its seventh round this week, with racing first both adults and children.
The younger children were treated to blue skies and sunshine whilst they raced and a good field of local youngsters and riders from Scotland were on the startline for the Under 8s and Under 10s Race.
Visitors from North of the Border won 3 of the categories with Zoe Martin first U10 girls and Mitch and Skye Stewart winning U10 boys and U8 girls respectively.
There was a local victory in the U8 boys however with Arthur De Wet riding for West Cumbrian club Lakeland Sprinters very proud to be on the top step of the podium in his very first race.
School exams seem to have impacted numbers in the older youth race somewhat this week, but nevertheless there were some spirited performances in a rapidly strengthening wind, and honours were shared between Scotland and Cumbria, with Josh and Cobey Stewart winning their races while local riders Luke Davison and Hannah Winkley won the Under 16 classes.
The weather looked very gloomy by the time the adults started racing, to the point that the organisers switched the floodlights on – the first time anyone can remember that being necessary in June!
Fortunately the threatened rain held off for most of the race but the wind provided challenging race conditions and the race broke up into several small groups early on.
However a good sized group of riders came back together in the closing laps leading to an exciting final sprint for the line.
First home was Alistair Murray of Newcastle followed by Thomas Johnstone riding for Glasgow Green CC who rode the fastest lap of the night in a fraction over 1 minute 19 seconds.
The podium was completed by Joel Housego with another impressive performance after his win last week meaning that he collected the necessary ranking points to obtain his third category race licence.
First Cumbrian to finish was James Parkin of Wolf Cycles in 5th place, narrowly ahead of veteran Border City Wheelers rider Bryan Pool.
