Pre-race favourite Matt Boys did not disappoint as he went wire-to-wire to win the Sinclair Packwood Memorial Race title by a wide margin over former champion Darren Glasford.

An early crash near Sound View Road junction, that adversely impacted would-be challenger Jackson Langley, allowed Boys, a former Australian professional rider, to ease ahead and never look back.

“My intent was to feel out things early, but then Jackson crashed just past St James Anglican Church,” explained Boys of his getaway moment.

“It was go time, but he hit a pothole going up the hill, crashed and lost control, so I’m thinking I had to go because the plan was still on.”

Che’quan Richardson stayed on the wheel of Boys as long as he could, lasting until midway down Harbour Road, when Boys put down the hammer and forced surrender.

Boys eased across the line without a challenger in sight, his time of 27min 26.68sec nearly two minutes ahead of former champion Darren Glasford (29:13.45).

Junior Gordon Smith produced a great ride to finish third ([29:14.16) as Richardson (29:15.95) paid for his early efforts to finish sixth overall.

Even as the race shaped up as training run, Boys was ecstatic at his Bermuda Day victory.

“It’s really special to win this race,” Boys said.

“In Australia you don’t have a situation where the whole country comes out in support. This is so great an experience.”

For Caitlin Conyers, winning the women’s race was reaffirmation of her status as one of the pre-eminent female cyclists on the Island.

Conyers, like Boys made an early move to which there was no reply, making hers a race against men, with closest rival Nicole Mitchell (30:22.18_ breaking the finish line five minute in arrears.

“It’s been two years,” said Conyers, while catching her breath at the finish.

“I have the course record from St George’s but this feels good coming out of Somerset. I was prepared for it and strong going into it. Knowing that I had one strong contender not involved made it a bit easier.”

Meanwhile, among the juniors Kelise Wade (5:26.53) was over the moon after beating the boys to capture her first overall title among the 12-14 age bracket, edging Jonah MacGuinness (5:26.63) in a photo finish on Cedar Avenue.

“I was nervous at the beginning of the race, as I saw the sun coming out, but as I started there was not a lot of headwind and I had a good feeling about how things would turn out,” Wade said.

“I was able to control the race from early on before Jonah came back and then I was able to push through at the finish.

”My goal was to stay with the leaders,” said a shy MacGuinness.

His father, Neil MacGuinness, said on his son’s behalf: “We’ve been focusing on this for a while and he hasn’t done many races, so to come second is a great achievement