2011 AnPost Ras race files and articles

As some of you know, I was writing a blog entry for the Irish Examiner newspaper throughout the AnPost Ras. I have links to the online articles below as well as links to the actually race files from my bike computer. In some cases the HR data is wrong due to interference - also I lose power data for the final stage when I had to change bikes.

I hope some people find the files etc... interesting.

Pre-race
Openers (500W for 4 minutes or 1900VAM)
Examiner Piece

Stage 1
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

Stage 2
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

Stage 3
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

Stage 4
Race file on Strava (altitude data incorrect due to the weather!)
Examiner Piece

Over the Healy Pass in the front group (via Stevie McKenna)

Stage 5
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

Stage 6
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

Stage 7
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

Stage 8
Race file on Strava
Examiner Piece

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 8

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 4 - Irish Examiner Blog Article

(A report from Stage 4 of the Ras)

Having finished today's 142 kilometers from Castleisland to Castletownbere, we are officially at the midway point of this years Ras and I'm glad to say that I'm feeling better as the kilometers tick by.


Today's stage was mostly flat for the first 70 kilometers but the final 70 went over some of Kerry's finest mountain passes. As we left Castleisland, the sunburn that many riders acquired the previous day was a distant memory as high winds and rain battered the peleton. From time to time during the day we would have a brief respite, but wet roads were a common theme – to some riders detriment later on in the stage.


A small group escaped pretty early in the stage but it wasn't significant for the general classification so it was mostly ignored while group after group tried to make their own escape on the roads to and out of Killarney. I was in a few such groups but everything was pulled back by a very attentive AnPost team (AnPost are the current yellow jersey leaders).


After 70 kilometers we hit the first climb of the day – it is more a long drag, and again, the race was controlled over both Ladies View, Molls Gap and the resultant descent. Even the next climb, The Tourist, was handled at a pretty pedestrian pace.


As we hit the category 2 climb of Knockanoughanish I realized that I had mistaken it for another climb and suddenly the race, and peleton, started to blow apart – my position wasn't the best, but I used my climbing legs to make sure I was in the front split as we crested the climb. A slippery descent made everyone nervous but I think everyone in the front part of the race made it down safely.


The final climb of the day, the Healy Pass, was where the final culling of the front group took place. A reasonable tempo was set at the front – I was comfortable (this is my terrain afterall), but riders where dropping off quickly – it was only when I got to the top of the climb that I realized I was still in the big chainring on my bike – I guess the ascent was fast enough!


The climb caused people bother, but the descent was much worse. Small, windy, well travelled roads were lethal in the wet. I expected it to be dangerous so I made sure I was in the front couple of riders as we crested the climb – only to see rider after rider fall on the descent – it made me nervous too so I was pretty cautious.


After a few kilometers on the flat roads towards Castletownbere the front group formed of 35 riders. There were attempts from riders to get off the front but it all came back together for current yellow jersey holder, , to win another stage. I finished 16th in the sprint and lost out on the county rider prize by a tire width.


I enjoyed today's racing – my legs are starting to feel good, I think I'm at about 90%, but that is a lot better than a few days ago and I'm super motivated to have another strong day tomorrow.

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 7

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 6

Stage 6 report

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 5

Report says it all:

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 4

An interesting enough day in the hills - report says it all.

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 3

Why does it take me a few days to start feeling okay... Starting to come around today and we hit the hills tomorrow.

Today's report after the race.

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 2

We didn't have good internet connectivity yesterday so I'm only getting yesterdays report up now. The wind, oh, the wind!

2011 AnPost Ras Stage 1

Tough day - report says it all. Also a piece in the Irish Examiner online/paper.

2010 Marathon World Championships - St. Wendel

It took a while to get the post up (I have been 'life' busy). But finally a bit of a report from the World Marathon Championships.

I took this video just after the race which says it all.

Basically:

Started at the back of the grid, race was super fast and split early into large groups. I was in a group too far back. After almost an hour of racing I was 4 minutes off the race leaders – but the race was effectively over.

Course was the most boring course (in the dry) I have ridden – I have had much more technical road races. I felt reasonable in the race though. Race organization was great.


Next years Worlds are on in Montebulluna where I raced a few weeks ago - much more interesting. Followed by Ornan where I finished 25th in a Marathon World Cup in 2008. Ornan was a great course.

2010 European Marathon Championships

It has been a year since my last marathon race. Mountain bike marathons tend to be one of the toughest races out there with race times between 4 and 6 hours with little or no respite.

The Garmin 705 was a life saver on this trip

I had heard some good things about the course for the 2010 European Championships (the 2011 World Championships will be held there too). There were 17 categorized climbs and it seemed pretty much all of them were steep. What goes up, must come down and there was a lot of singletrack descending. The descents, in the dry conditions where not technical but riding them at 35+kmph for the first time, the margin for error drops dramatically.

Waiting to start

The race started with 110+ riders on a hot morning in Montebelluna, Italy. From the gun, the start was super fast as we hit the first major climb, and the only tarmac one. At that point the race already started to break up and I found myself in a group a few too many groups back. I was riding the descents very well and was able to bridge groups but after about 35km, the groups settled into what it would be for the day. The middle section of the race had lots of parts where group riding was imperative, a lone effort trying to bridge was doomed. As the kilometers ticked by I started to feel a little better (I suffered all day, but felt physically sick for the first few hours) and over time dropped the rest of my group and started picking off other riders ahead.

Postcard perfect views

After 130 very tough off road kilometers, and 5 hours 40 minutes saddle time I raced over the line for 43rd. The second half of my race went well but I really should have been in the lead group of 30 over the first couple of mountains - something to work on and get right for the World Championships later in the year in Germany.

I took the follow video a couple of minutes after finishing the race.

My friend Alan accompanied me (took the video/pics you see) for the race to provide support - it was vital and everything surrounding the race went like clockwork. Thanks Alan!

Alan also has a few pictures up here.

Oh, and this is what I ate/drank during the race:
25 minutes before the start - 1 ZipVit Caffeine Gel

During the race
6 ZipVit Gels
1 ZipVit Caffeine Gel
7 750ml bottles of ZipVit Energy
2 500ml bottles of water

A video from the 2010 Dalby World Cup

Some footage Mel shot form the final lap of the Dalby World Cup. The riders are descending Medusas Drop

Photos from the 2010 Dalby World Cup

A few pictures from the World Cup at the weekend. Taken while either Mel or I was supporting the other.

2010 XC World Cup Round 1 - Dalby

2010 UCI XC World Cup Round 1

Basically not a good day for me - not going well and then crashed out into the DNF bin. Video blog says it all.

2009 Marathon World Championships

Every time that I have pulled on the green (and this year, really really green) jersey to represent Ireland it has been something special. In my short cycling career I have not done this many times (yet) but each time it means a lot to me. To top all that, heading to a World Championship, with all the big name riders sporting their countries flags is something to cherish. With all that in mind, Mel and I headed to Graz in Austria for the 2009 Marathon World Championships.

Course Profile

With 3810 meters of climb spread over 104 kilometers of fireroads, single track, river beds, grass and tarmac, the course for the 2009 Marathon World Championships looked to be the toughest race of the year. Upon arriving, two days before the big event, the idea that it was a difficult course was backed up by every competitor we met that had ridden the course. An easy way to grasp the course is it think of it as a very technical XC course stretched in both distance and elevation – everything was to the extreme. Even 2007 Marathon World Champion, Christoph Sauser claimed it to be the most difficult marathon course ever – sweet :)

Mel and I arrived at the race venue Friday afternoon (race was Sunday) hoping to get a little easy riding in to help relax our tired bodies from all the travelling. After building the bikes, we decided to ride the first few kilometers of the course. After a couple of kilometers of gentle tarmac climbing we hit the first obstacle, a 1.5 kilometer road climb that averaged 21% and had stretches at 28%. Not exactly easy riding – with the granny gear in use, we tootled up it. After that, we rode the final 2 kilometers of singletrack back to the start/finish – a really fun section of pointy rocks and slippery roots – a section where good balance and the ability to stay away from using the brakes would be key. It was at this point that I knew my S-Works Epic was the perfect bike for the race – indeed, almost all the top riders, male and female rode full suspension bikes for the race.

A flag for every nation there - I was the only Irish

The following day, a Gondola ride (who wants to climb for an hour the day before a marathon race?) took Melanie, Elisabeth Brandau and myself to the highest point in the course, Schockl-Bergstation. From there it was an hour of fun technical riding back to the start.

Mel preps bottles, I prep bikes

Race morning arrived and my legs felt pretty good. A 15 minute warmup had me down for gridding just in time. Unlike last year (dead last), my grid position was amazing – called up 16th. I knew that I would not be beating my number plate (this year) – but to start from the front, rather than the back was nice – especially going into the steep initial climb. The race started at an easy tempo as we rode over to the base of the steep climb and at that point, everyone switched into top gear. Looking around, you would think you were in a 1 hour cyclocross race, not a 5 hour marathon. My heart rate was sky high and I knew that if I pushed too hard, for too long, I would really pay later in the day so I allowed myself to slip back (mistake?). Soon, we were on virgin trails (to me at least) – with the rain the night before some of the sections turned pretty slick and I was having a great time slipping by riders less accustomed to riding in the wet.

One of the really stressful things about racing abroad for Mel and I, especially marathons, is race/feed support – we have none! Mel and I are privateer racers and all expenses are out of our own pocket – getting to these races costs a lot and the support we get from other racers and their supporters means a huge amount to us. At the worlds, thanks to Andy at SportAmed for taking us under his wing. He (obviously) had to support his own team riders first but even taking the bottles to the various locations was a huge help. Andy was helping us, but, as I say, he had his riders to account for which meant that I was either getting a handup from Andy (thanks!) or he left the bottles at the side of the feed zone for us to stop and grab. Now, in a lot of races, the feed zones are pretty civil affairs – not here – it was a chaotic jungle of screams, shouts and bottles flying. It was really amazing but not exactly conducive to finding a bottle at the side of the feed zone! Anyway, during the race, I missed a few bottles, lost contract with riders while I searched for bottles and had to deal with the stress of trying to sort all this out before the start. I said it last year, I'll say it again – WE NEED SUPPORT AT THESE THINGS. A few minutes difference in my race time was quite a few positions. Just having support would have given me this. Anyway...

More big climbs and more super fun descents were on the cards. I had heard a lot about some extreme descents but I didn't find anything too nuts. Sections of off-camber rooty goodness followed by 500 meter long rock gardens straight down the side of a mountain – great fun.


The long climb up to Schockl seemed to take forever but as the climb went on, I actually felt better and better (maybe it was the Guava TorQ gels?). I passed a lot of riders that looked to be paying for their earlier efforts. At the neutral feed at the top I grabbed a Redbull and started the long steep descent. As with all the riding in the day, I cleared all the descents cleanly but there was many a sketchy moment when the front and rear suspension saved me. In training, I would never hit some of the sections so fast, but when you are in a race, especially wearing your countrie's colours, a little go faster bulb seems to go off in my head and I imagine myself riding a downhill bike with full armour (rather than a 9 kilo wippet bike with me in lycra!).


As I entered the final kilometer of the course, I saw a German jersey, a white Specialized Helmet and another Epic – I had caught Mel. She started 15 minutes after me but had a shorter route. I nipped past her on a bend (I had been passing men on the way down the descent and I wasn't finished yet) and told her to hang on to me. A couple of minutes later I crossed the line happy to be finished with Mel following a few seconds later – it was really nice for us to be both over the line at the same time.



My race time was 5:23 which placed be 64th - a little over half way up the field. I had a pretty good race but have a top 40 as a goal for next year (15 minutes faster would have had me there this year).

Many many thanks to our main sponsors, KCNC, Schwalbe, TorQ, Crankbrothers but especially to Cycleways and Specialized for helping us ride the best bikes available.

Results:
Mens Results
1 Roel Paulissen (Belgium) 4:34:37
2 Alban Lakata (Austria)
3 Christoph Sauser (Switzerland)
4 Christoph Soukup (Austria)
5 Wolfram Kurschat (Germany)
6 Alexey Medvedev (Russian Federation)

23 Oli Beckingsale (Great Britain)
64 Ryan Sherlock (Ireland)
72 Paul Oldham (Great Britain)

2009 British NPS Round 2 - Dalby Forest

Last weekend was a busy one – lots of things happening and one that I wont forget for a while. The second round of the British NPS series was been held in Dalby Forest, it was a UCI C2 event and also been used as a test event for a World Cup they hope to run in 2010.

An evening flight to Leeds and a quick car rental brought us to just outside Dalby around midnight, the day before the preride. Saturday morning was cloudy but looked like we were not going to get the rain we had lots of recently. Hoping for a dry course, we arrived at the race venue to see the usual pre-race buzz. The TorQ crew were already there and were expanded by the Australian contingent that are in Europe competing in all the European World Cups.

Start of the Men's race

After a lap of the course, I had to admit that I liked it. Lots of courses feel like you are always climbing, this course felt like you were always descending. Lots of swoopy wide singletrack sections, a lung buster climb, a 'standard' 3 minutes climb and a few technical sections. Before my lap, I heard lots of stories about how difficult some sections were, a big drop and a rooty/droppy section being the highlights – I can tell you, after some of the things we rode in Cyprus, these sections were easy – Mel had no issues with riding them first time around either. (Although she did hava a fall and a scare that meant we spent Saturday evening in Scarborough A&E – I'll leave Mel to talk about that on her blog though)

Robin Seymour

Race morning arrived to see a stacked field, around 50 of us on the grid. A quick blast around the start arena and we hit the singletrack – I didn't push too hard and made sure to go into the singletrack around 20th-25th. I was trying to see if I take it a little steadier at the start, if I would be able push a bit harder later on. The laps went by easily enough, I enjoyed the course a lot and had a lot of little battles – having looked at my HR data afterwards, I don't think I was pushing hard enough or was not recovered, my HR was way down - or maybe ut was the cold I had for the previous few days. One thing that surprised me was how poor some riders were on the technical sections – great on the fireroads/easy singletrack but very slow descending (maybe too much road biking for some?). Up the last big climb on the last lap I caught and passed 2-3 riders and was feeling good. I had a few more riders in my sights and was chasing them down.


With under two minutes of riding to go on a walking trail linker section that lead to the last technical section I was out of the saddle sprinting to catch another rabbit. Suddenly, my world was turned upside down and I crushed into the ground – hitting a tree stump with my right pedal. I have hurt my shoulders a few times since I started riding and feared breaking things before. The way I felt as I hit the ground, I knew that I had broken something – there was no doubt. As it happened, my crash was as close to the medic tent as I could have made it and with a steward in tow, I wondered over. Feeling like a ghost, dizzy and getting cold I answered a few questions and with nothing more than a look, I was diagnosed to have broken my left clavicle. Blood poured from me but that was the least of my worries. I asked one of the medics to find Mel and a few minutes later, he returned with a worried looking Mel and we started to plan the rest of our day. A trip to Scarborough A&E was in order :(

After arriving there, it took about 4 hours until I had been seen, X-Rayed and ready to try and get back to Dublin. Mel was a star looking after me and packing up our bikes and between my friends Alan and Fergal (who I called to help me with advice) and the VHI, a very complicated situation was made a lot more manageable. 22:20 flight out of Leeds seen us get to bed shortly before 2am. (We were still wearing our race gear until shortly before then!)

Results, report and photos are up here. I also have to mention Mel's second place which means she is now ranked in the World Top 100 (but bad for a girl that decided to do this mountain biking thing properly 18 months ago) and leads the UK NPS series - well done Mel!

More on the injuries soon... I would also like to say a big thanks for all the well wishes - it means a lot to me. It's really tough going from fully fit to injured like this, but in 13 years of high level sport, this is only my second serious injury so I shouldn't complain too much!

World Cup Round 1 XCO Race Pictures

A few more photos from the first round of the 2009 XCO World Cup in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

2009 UCI World Cup - Round 1 - Pietermaritzburg - South Africa

Mel and I wrote a little piece about our trip for spoke.ie here and here, it covers more of the details surrounding the trip, in this post I'll really only be talking about the World Cup race itself.

Finally, the morning of the race arrived – my first Cross Country World Cup. Looking out the window I saw blue skies – damn, it was going to be another scorcher. As Mel was racing at 10:30am (lucky devil), I would have to hang around the race course a few hours before my race – not the best preparation, but it was cool to see her race start and watch the first few laps. My warmup went well, my heart rate responded to my efforts and I felt okay – I spent a bit more time than usual on the warmup, 45 minutes, but knew that the race would be explosive from the second the gun went so wanted to be prepared. 20 minutes before our race started, we started to line up in our starting pens. I was gridded 94th of the 140+ riders – a lot in front, but also a lot behind me. We all fought (well, not really) for any bit of shade as the temperatures soared and we all started to cook in the holding pens.

The course profile

A birds eye view

At exactly 1pm the gun went off and chaos began. I held my position well (actually, I think I made positions) but 15 seconds into the race, about 20 meters in front of me I heard a huge pop and the sound of carbon breaking. There was a pileup with a few broken bikes and one broken carbon wheel (the cause of the impressively loud explosion). 15 seconds into the race and already a few riders races was over. This was one thing I was very careful about – I didn't want to travel all this way and have it end before it really started. Fortunately, I was able to dismount and get around the carnage safely and chase on up the following climb. Passing riders was tricky, and much of the climbing I had to run on the first lap (one person makes a mistake and everyone has to dismount – the climbs were very very steep and getting on and riding again would be impossible). The single track descent was completed at a crawling pace as well as most of the climbing on the first lap. By the start of the second lap, the field has spread out a lot and you were able to ride your own race a little more.

3rd placed Burry Stander

The second lap seemed to go by in a flash and I was on to my third. The heat and humidity, was really hitting me at this point, every effort seemed to take 3 or 4 times more out of me than usual, and each time I saw the steep climbs, I didn't know how I would climb it. I was drinking 500ml per lap but it didn't seem enough. Indeed, by the top of the main climb on my third lap, my fingers were tingling and I started to feel cold (a very bad thing when you have been going as hard as you can in 30C+ with humidity at 98%!) By the bottom of the descent (only a couple of minutes – it was very fast, flowy and fun) I felt okay and grabbed another bottle from Alan (my housemate from Ireland who also made the trip over) to start another loop. Going around the fourth lap, again my body felt weird – I actually hopped to get pulled as I had no idea how I would ride another lap.

One of the 'flat' climbs lined with spectators

Midway through the fifth lap, the lead motor bike came around me and I knew my race was numbered. A few minutes later, Jose Hermida, Julien Absalon and then Burry Stander rode by. The speed they went past was not particularly unbelievable, but the smoothness and fluidity that they did it was so impressive. I could hear they were on the edge from their breathing but you wouldn't know it from looking at them. As they passed, I cheered them on and then tried to hang on as best I could – I didn't last very long but on the descent, they didn't gap me (much) which I was pretty happy about. I reached the end of the lap and pulled off the course. My first reaction, after almost falling to the ground with exhaustion, was having a big smile on my face. I really really enjoyed the race. With 6,000 spectators lining the course, the atmosphere was amazing – people screamed your name as you suffered up the climbs and horns blew as you wizzed by on the descents. The course was probably the toughest I have ridden, no where near the most technical but the climbs were so hard that it would take an expert level rider to even try and complete a lap! Many of the Olympic riders compared the course to Beijing except with longer climbs but less technical descents. Then there was the heat, humidity and altitude – all things that I was not used to which were trying to hold me back (and succeeding!). My finishing position of 97 (140+ started) was so-so, but yet I was very happy after the race – my heart rate was pegged from the start, and on the day, I couldn't give it anything more (feeling cold at the top of climbs told me that one). I felt spent.

Julien Absalon

Almost finished for the day

Pietermaritzburg is holding World Cups at the same venue for another 2 years and assuming I'm fit, I'm already planning for my trip next year – it was amazing. This time though, I'll be heading out earlier – anyone want to join me for a go at the Cape Epic?

So – this is a little bit of a postmortem. Both Mel and I rode the course on the Monday after the race (race was on Saturday). It was back to training before our long flight home, and as part of it I did three laps of the course focusing on certain things – at the end of the session I decided to do one more hardish effort on the course, basically, I would go 100% on the steep climbs, tempo on the not so steep climbs and cruise the flatish sections (downhills are always flatout!). After completing the lap, I looked down to see I just completed the lap 50 seconds faster than the fastest lap in my race, my average heart rate was even 20 beats lower than the race average. Sorta tells me something was up in the race. After meeting Mel afterwards, she had the same opinion, she was consistently riding laps much faster than in her race (course conditions were almost identical). What I'm taking from it is that next year I'll be travelling out much earlier for it giving more time to get over the long haul flights and more importantly getting used to the heat and humidity.

I have to give a thank you to our sponsors and especially both Specialized and Cycleways for looking after us in South Africa. A few hiccups appeared along the trip and they were amazing at sorting everything out so that I could focus on the race. Thanks for the support and for getting us on the best race bikes available. Both Mel and I would also like to thank Alan Donnelly for making the trip out and helping out with the feed and technical zones, photo taking and lots of other things.

2009 Sunshine Cup Round 4 - UCI C1

It seemed like no time ago that Mel and I arrived in Cyprus for the Sunshine Cup, but Sunday was the final race in the 2009 series. On Thursday Mel and I traveled up to Oroklini to train on the course for the race. A very warm and sunny day greeted us on the course and pretty quickly we noticed the lack of shade – no problem, time to work on the tan :)
The course was probably the best of the series, a 7.5km mixture of fireroad, single track climbing, technical rocky climbing and, as usual for the Sunshine Cup, steep technical descending. This time though, the major descent was around two and a half minutes of white knuckle, stay off the breaks madness. Indeed, the first time around the lap I was wondering how I would ride it! Mostly, the initial apprehension was due to the sheer scale and length of the descents and from the second lap on, once you knew what to expect the descents were a blast.

For both of us, this trip was more about the training than the racing, our competition was a mixture of people peaking for these races and people training straight through them. To that end, last week both of us got a lot of good riding in and were both a little tired going into the race. Race morning arrived and I actually felt reasonably good – as I started my warmup, the rain clouds came in with a cold wind – the course was technical enough without the rain! As the 11am start time approached the 65 or so Elite Men congregated around the start area, the wind eased and the rain left us for the day – yes this IS the Sunshine Cup.

Shortly after 11 the race kicked off, a few missed pedals in front of me almost caused a pile up but the start loop was pretty well designed so we all settled into the race pretty quickly. Although not as bad as my last few races, I still wasn’t happy with my start. The first full lap went by in a blur with lots of jostling for position the whole way around - I mostly battled with guys from the German and Russian national teams. I seemed to be a lot stronger on the technical climbs (the full suspension S-Works Epic surely helped with that), descending roughly equal or better and then losing distance a bit on the flats/fireroads. Due to my lack of offroad riding over the winter, I thought the less technical end of things would be my stronger side, but I guess these guys did even less off road than me!


Halfway through my 3rd lap (Elite Men did 5 laps plus 1.5 start loops) I had the first of my two incidents. I had just passed two riders on a technical climb and was on a transitional fireroad section before the long descent when my front wheel unexpectedly washed out. With all the super technical descending, I fall on the freaking fireroad, it wasn’t even a fast section! Gashes on my elbow and knee pumped with pain and I contemplated calling it a day – I remounted and rode the descent, by the bottom I decided that there was no point calling it a day as the descents were too much fun and the cuts didn’t look too bad.

Climbing some singletrack

My next two laps were going well, I was catching up with the group that was fighting for 27th and felt pretty good. The punchy climbs had sapped a lot of my legs energy but I knew I could put in one more push to the finish. I rounded the top of the course with about 5 km to go, when disaster struck. Pshh, pshh, pshh – the front tire was slashed and Stan wasn’t up to the job. I started into the descent with about 10psi in the front tire but a few yards later it was obvious that things were not so good. I had a CO2 so I waited to a section where the wheel would be spinning well and inflated the tire in the hope that the whole would plug. No luck – damn. I rode/ran what I could on the way back but cursed as rider after rider nipped by. I lost 7 positions as I made my way back to the start/finish, and almost worse, lost out on the chance on riding those descents one last time.



Annoyed, I arrived back at the start finish – had I not had the puncture, I would have finished around 11 minutes down on the winner (about 10% off their speed).

Summing up, the course was great and the racing tough – the cuts meant I had a pretty sleepless night last night (there was one exact position I could lye) and the flat was a bit of a dampener, but I got great training and racing out here and at least I only had one race puncture, and it was on the last lap. I finished up 18th in GC for the Cup (the puncture cost my 3 places) but plan to return next year and make some improvements :)

Results for the race are available here and there is a report available here.

A special thanks to Fredrick from the Kalavasos bike station for helping us in so many ways over the last three weeks. Also, Cycleways, Specialized, KCNC and TorQ – for allowing us to ride on the best equipment available and keep our energy levels topped up. Thanks!