Jack Conroy may be ‘from a cycling background’ but the Wicklow teenager drifted away from the sport during his first years in secondary school only to rediscover a love for cycling again during the pandemic period.
And now that he has taken his first victory in an A1 race – beating Daire Feeley (All human-VeloRevolution) to boot – the 19-year-old is hopeful more success can come his way.
“Last year was my first year in the seniors and the goal was to get to A1 as fast I could,” he told stickybottle. “I didn’t put too much thought into winning, I just wanted to get used to racing against the big guys first and then hopefully start winning.”
He got what will hopefully prove to be a lasting winning run off the mark the weekend before last at the Bohermeen CC-promoted Mick Beggan Shield in Co Meath, over nine laps of a 7km circuit.
Conroy marked Feeley and when the Roscommon man started jumping up the road, and Paul Kennedy (Skyline Cadence) likewise, the Bray Wheelers teenager got into one move with both of them.
They began to ride away from the rest of the field around the halfway point of the race and were never caught.
Unfortunately for Kennedy, though he believed he could take a lap out on the short circuit after a puncture, that was not the case. And he was informed by the commissaires he could not contest the finish.
Conroy and Feeley needed a photo finish to be separated on the line, but the verdict went to the young Bray rider; a major feather in his cap and a big confidence-booster.
“I was saying to myself ‘thank God, I might be actually good at this’,” Conroy laughs reflecting on the win. But not so long ago he was a long way from winning – even riding – bike races.
“I took it up again over lockdown, but it was always kinda there,” he said of rediscovering his love for the bike in recent years after being introduced to cycling by his father, former top rider Donie Conroy, when he was in national school.
“I started at the Community Games, which was cycling on grass. So, really, that was the only thing I did when I was much younger. But I always had the support at home, to do any sport,” said Conroy, a personal trainer from Rathdrum.
“I was also doing cross country running for most of the time I was in secondary school so I only got back into cycling in transition year, in 2020. And then my first proper season of racing was 2022 as a second-year junior.”
While Conroy has now taken his first win against the A1s, the potential has been clear for a while. He won the opening stage of the Charleville Two Day two years ago, holding yellow in the TT only to lose it on the third and final stage.
This year there have also been some very strong performances, with 4th in the Newbridge GP and a solid 16th on the third stage of Dornan Rás Mumhan at Easter. Last weekend he was 12th in the Donal Crowley Memorial in Co Cork, the second round of the Cycling Ireland National Road Series.
Now being coached by Aidan Hammond, a former top A1 rider with Orwell Wheelers, Conroy said that guidance was very important to him, both in terms of training, positioning in races and tactics generally. “And the same goes for my dad as well, he always chips in with the tactics end of things.”
Now that his club Bray Wheelers is putting a team into the Rás, Conroy said there was “great momentum” behind that effort and he would love to get a result on a stage.
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