Bray Wheelers gearing up for the famous Shay Elliot race

This one-day race is the toughest and one of the longest running events on the Irish cycling calendar and this year its running for the 66th occasion and has only skipped one year due to the recent pandemic.

Bray Wheelers have been working hard in recent years to cement its status as the race that everyone wants to win.

A field of about 180 riders will leave Laragh to compete in this most prestigious of races with a 124km event awaiting the A1 and A2 riders. The Ken Duff Memorial will also run the same day which is a shorter route 76km for A3 and Junior riders.

The main race is named in memory of local man Shay Elliott who had a very distinguished cycling career.

Elliott was Irish National Road Champion in 1954 and 1956 and came first in points classification in Paris-Nice in 1957.

In 1960 he came first in Stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia, and in 1662 he came third overall at the Vuelta a España and came first in Stage four for the same race.

He held the leader’s jersey for nine stages.

In 1959 Elliott became the first Irish rider to start the Tour de France, and four years after that, on June 25, 1963, he won Stage 3 from Jambes, in Belgium to Roubaix, his 33-second victory margin enough to give him his first yellow jersey.

Elliott wore the leader’s jersey for the next three days, before losing it in the time trial on stage six.

After having won stages at the Vuelta and the Giro d’Italia during his career, he became the first English-speaking rider to wear the leader’s jersey in all three major tours.

Shay’s brother Paul rode for Bray Wheelers in the 1960s and early 1970s, winning the Tour of Ireland in 1970 with his Bray Wheelers team taking the team title.

Shay returned to Dublin but died prematurely in 1971 aged only 36.

One of Shay’s last team bikes and his jerseys are proudly on display in the Bray Wheelers clubhouse, generously donated by Noel O’Brien and restored by Odhran O’Caoilte in 2016.

Founded in 1949 and celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, Bray Wheelers is one of the most famous cycling clubs in the country.

Bike racing started in the area with the famous Bray Race around the town and seafront in the early 1950’s but club founder Joe Loughman wanted a tougher affair to strengthen his racing team.

He devised the Route di Chill Maintain that was designed to take in the hardest roads and climbs in Wicklow. After the death of Shay Elliott, the race was renamed the Shay Elliott Memorial Race in 1972.

This was known as a massed start race and competitors from clubs all over Ireland entered the race which ran for the first time in 1958 and won by John Lacky, the then captain of the Irish team who would compete in the World Championships in Belgium.

For many years the event started and finished at the Bray Wheelers club house or even the town hall but given traffic in the area it became more difficult to organise. This year the event will start in Laragh and finish at the famous Shay Elliott climb in Glenmalure which hosts a memorial to the great man that marks the top of the climb.

A Bray Wheeler has not won the race since Michael O’Donnell took the honours in 1998 but there will be a strong contingent from the home club this year with the likes of Jack Conroy and Conor Verbruggen showing terrific form in the recent Ras Mumhan, Jack winning recently

The Ken Duff Memorial is in memory of Ken Duff who is well known around Bray, famous of Duff’s pub and a life member and great friend of Bray Wheelers.

There will be over 70 Bray Wheelers club members on marshalling duty around the course supported by An Garda Síochána and the race will depart Laragh GAA Club at 10am and make its way through Rathdrum, Greenan, Ballinaclash where the race will start the first of four laps through Woodenbridge and Avoca to the finish at the top of the tough Glenmalure climb. The race is expected to finish between 1pm and 1.30pm.

For enquiries about the race, you can contact Bray Wheelers through their website at www.braywheelers.ie.