The lights are about to shine even brighter on night cycling.
Top local rider Darren Matthews will make his much-awaited return to the sport on Saturday in a meet organised by the Friends of Cycling. The group also plans to add a Devil Takes The Hindmost race to its Independence programme at The Villages, Coverley.
It’s the second such road racing event being staged by the group, who received rave reviews from the sport’s fraternity after 75 cyclists contested six highly-competitive races at the novel venue a month ago.
But the big storyline revolves around the return of Matthews, who hasn’t participated in a race of any kind since being left off of Barbados’ team to the Caribbean Road Race Championships earlier this year.
And his comeback couldn’t have come at a better time, with the 23-year-old set to challenge Barbados’ best – Russell Elcock, Javed Mounter and Ross Callender – in a one-of-a-kind event that has never featured a Devil Takes The Hindmost as a road race.
“Barbadians really shouldn’t miss this because this is nonstop action on a very fast course with good cyclists,” said organiser Colin Forde.
“The first one appears to be such a big success with both the riders and the fans that they’ve been asking us when this second one is coming up. But now this I can tell you will be even better, especially with Darren’s return.”
“However, he’s not the only one new that we’re expecting because of the interest we’re getting. We had 74 riders the last time and we’re expecting even more this time,” he added.
Along with the featured Devil Takes The Hindmost race, Matthews and the vaunted senior line-up are expected to do battle in a ten-lap event that will also include juniors Joshua Kelly, Edwin Sutherland and Liam Lovell.
The masters, juveniles and tiny mites are slated to face off in their own eight-lap race after Mounter looks to seek revenge against Callender in the keirin.
There will be two kids’ races for riders between the ages of three and 14 as well as a fun riders’ race for any spectator.
Action is slated to start at 6 p.m. and finish around 9 p.m.
