Endurance Cycling Club Tens Sails Race Review

Caymans own Crankers Cycling Club has kicked of the start of a new racing series for 2011. The Endurance Cycling Club was extended an invitation to travel to the Cayman Islands to participate in the first staging of these events that was dubbed the “Cayman Challenge Cycle Series”, which is slated run from the 23^rd of January through to the 13^th of June. This saw the select team of Endurance cyclist, Shacquille Sinclair, Mavin Anderson, Tyrone Edwards and Marcel Hayles competing in the first two days of fierce competition over the January 23^rd -24^th Heroes day weekend.

The “TEN SAIL CYCLE CHALLENGE” was the official start to what is geared to be a grand series of racing for the Crankers Cycling Club. Being the first meet of the series, the team was in high spirit to be in a neighboring country to compete at the club level, and wanted to see what they were up against. The trip over was a wonderful experience courtesy of the National carrier Cayman Air Ways and our stay with the Jones family was very hospitable. 

The locals were found to be extremely kind and friendly to us as new comers to their island. From a cyclist point of view; we found the island to be a cycle friendly environment, pot hole free, breath taking scenery, long costal strips and a clean place to race. It would have been nice to know that the motoring public is not a threat to the cyclist on the roads, however this was not so.

The level of cycling in Cayman is not what we were expecting, but the good thing is that there is now some thing being done to resolve that problem. This bold move by the Crankers Cycling Club to introduce a new type of racing to the island by inviting us to compete against the local cyclist will only improve their standings in the realm of cycling in the Caribbean and the world at large. The level of competition that we brought to this event will only drive the local Clubs and riders to train harder and pull together to prevent other cycling counter parts like our self to come and dominate their home ground.

Even though one of our top riders (Marloe Rodman) was unable to make this trip, our team did very well. Shacquille Sinclair took the junior top spot and ended the weekend in second place in the overall standings. Mavin Anderson finished third in the road race to round of his effort as the fourth place finisher in the elite and fifth in the overall standing. Tyrone Edwards got sixth in the road race and did a glorious ride in the time trial to get the third place in the elite and fourth in the overall standings. Marcel Hayles rode an exceptional road race and gave it his best on the time trial leg to help the team to their second place standing in the Club aspect of the series. At the end of the three events the Club with the lowest time will be declared the Champion Club of the series.

With some minor adjustment to the team we will be armed and ready to demolish the competition at our next showing in the second leg of the Cayman Challenge Cycle Series: Cayman Brac Bluff Challenge on the 24^th and 25^th of April. We hope that it will get the full support of the local cycling community to set the stage for the finale in Grand Cayman: Tour De GC on the 12^th and 13^th of June.

We have to say a huge thanks to the promoter/president of the Crankers Cycling Club Barry Jones for getting us there. Keep up the good work, until we share the pavement on our next challenge.