So that was an interesting weekend of racing.
Sunday saw the third round of the K-Capital Cup visit Carlingford, Co. Lough. Luckily MET Eireann predicated beautiful sunny weather for the weekend so the pre-ride on Saturday and the race on Sunday were both held in beautiful sunshine. The course was amazing, if a little new (less the a week old in it's current incarnation). Basically, it was about 150 meters up a fireroad then left on to a steep single track climb and then a single track descent back onto the fireroad (about 1.5 minutes...) then another 900 meters up a fireroad, nowhere near as steep as last week. Then we hit single track for the remaining 3 kilometres of the loop. We were going to be doing 8 laps of the course.
Sunday morning was arrived and I felt more prepared then I did last week, my warm-up went well and I was looking forward to a bit of racing. Shortly after 1:30pm our race started and the Elites accelerated up the hill. Again, I was glad that the speed was not too fast and I set in behind James McClusky (out of the wind) for most of the climb. You could tell everyone was being careful in the single track the first time around and over the first 1km or so I passed a few racers out. About three quarters of the way around the first lap I was riding very comfortably (read – I wasn't going so hard I wanted to quit) and was enjoying a tussle between Lewis Ferguson, Lee Williams and myself. Then on a dual track the specific hiss of a snake bite came from my rear wheel – to say I was a little annoyed is an understatement, I was really really enjoying the racing and I still felt strong. About 2 minutes 20 seconds (wasted 20 seconds trying to find my CO2 cannister – rookie mistake) I was on the way. It was hard to get myself back up to full race speed, but I tried anyway... By the single track on the fourth lap (I think) I was back in 8th position and enjoying the race again when another flat occured. This time, as I had no CO2 or spare tube it was going to be a 2.5 km run across the single track back to the technical area... A new wheel greeted me at the technical area and I sped off – by the top of the fireroad climb I was in 9th when, this time my front tire flatted (I had given up to laughing about it all at this point). About 3km of single track running was ahead of my and I got lapped by the race leaders. When I crossed the line (5th lap complete of 8 total) I assumed my race was over due to being lapped so I put on warm clothes and drank chocolate milk and talked to the other races... About 15 minutes later I found out that I should keep racing as it's not over until the leaders finish. So, I ripped off my extra layers and cycled off without my gloves (the Bontrager foam grips are actually really really nice without gloves). I enjoyed the last lap and used the second half as recovery as I knew that the was no one to catch....
So, after the weekends racing I learnt a lot of things
1.Tubeless is the way forward – I'm getting a new set of wheels
2.You need a spare wheelset in the pits ready to go
3.Have spare tubes and CO2 ready to go
4.Keep racing until the commissionaire tells you your done!
The race left one other bad taste with me – at some stage I bashed my knee off a rock and it's been pretty sore since. I had to get off the bike yesterday after only a couple of minutes of easy riding and I wont be on a bike today. I'm icing it as a type and hopefully it will be perfect again soon.
There is a report available here and some more photos here.
Showing posts with label ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ireland. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
K-Capital Cup Round 2 – Rostrevor
Sunday seen me take part in the second round of the K-Capital Cup in Rostrevor. I headed up to the course on Saturday in beautiful sunshine for a pre ride of the course. Afterwards, I decided to spend some of the weekend at home in Monaghan with my folks. Paul, Ellen (plus one more soon!) and Eva where there so it was nice to catch up with them. In fact, most of my family (Mum, Dad, Paul, Ellen, Eva, Gary, Pauline, Cara and Chloe!) decided to come along to the race the next day to support me! I really appreciated them all coming along, it was really cool to have them cheering as I went around each lap. It definitely helped ease my burning legs and lungs each time around! They stayed around the start finish which was probably a little unfortunate as I think they would have enjoyed watching us fly down the technical terrain! Maybe next time :)
The course for the race was amazing, if a little short. The first kilometre of the course climbed one hundred meters with parts that hit an eighteen percent gradient! An amazing fast downhill section followed that with a bit of flat single track in the middle. Then it was another climb, around fifty meters vertical this time, then a very fast descent with a huge berm and more rolling single track back to the start. As it was such a short lap we were going to be doing it 8 times to total a little over two hours of riding.
Saturday evening was nice and relaxing. I ended up watching United 93 before I went to bed. It freaked me out a little – I was in Manhattan on 9/11 and was actually supposed to be up the towers when the planes hit except that, lucky me, I went out partying the night before until 5am and then slept in a bit. I woke up the next morning to the sound of fire trucks...
Shorly after arriving at the course on Sunday, Sean and I headed around the course for a practice/warm-up lap. The course was still really nice, slightly looser in the corners (the sports race had just gone over the course) but still rode really well. It didn't look like the course would get cut up much with all our racing. (Although, by my last lap there was a lot more roots about to pull a wheel in the wrong direction)
Our race started shortly after 2pm and I was glad to see that the pace was not too hectic up the first climb – it would have been evil if someone really tried to push the pace up that thing. All of us entered the first stretch of singletrack roughly at the same time (I was about 8th wheel, which made a great difference from two weeks ago - this in itself I was happy with). A few spills in front of me seen our group get separated a bit but it mostly bunched together again for the second climb. From there on there was a bit of position changing. A funny moment when I flew off the trail when a root caught my wheel with Peter Buggle telling me that happened to him on the last lap... I hopped back on and continued to descend and seen Peter do exactly the same thing in front of me! It was funny at the time...
Descending on the first lap
The whole race was pretty hard with those big (steep) climbs every lap but the amazing single track really kept me positive about them each time. I really started to ride the single track well from the fourth lap on and was happy with how I raced overall. I felt a lot better then I did two weeks ago, I don't feel fast yet but I feel stronger and better equipped to race now.
Fourth lap following along some amazing singletrack
The other thing about the race was that my bike really blew me away with how well it handles that type of course. The brain (rear suspension lockout) and weight of the bike was great for climbing but the bike really paid off when I turned onto single track. There were sections of the course that were riddled with roots but I really didn't notice them much (apart form one time when I had a bit of a spill...) - it simply floated over them. I really can't give the Epic a good enough review.
Some photos can be found here and here as well as a report here. Photos from the race on the blog came from here. Full results can be found here.
Next week it will be the third round of the K-Capital Cup so I'll be taking it easy enough training wise to get ready for it...
The course for the race was amazing, if a little short. The first kilometre of the course climbed one hundred meters with parts that hit an eighteen percent gradient! An amazing fast downhill section followed that with a bit of flat single track in the middle. Then it was another climb, around fifty meters vertical this time, then a very fast descent with a huge berm and more rolling single track back to the start. As it was such a short lap we were going to be doing it 8 times to total a little over two hours of riding.
Saturday evening was nice and relaxing. I ended up watching United 93 before I went to bed. It freaked me out a little – I was in Manhattan on 9/11 and was actually supposed to be up the towers when the planes hit except that, lucky me, I went out partying the night before until 5am and then slept in a bit. I woke up the next morning to the sound of fire trucks...
Shorly after arriving at the course on Sunday, Sean and I headed around the course for a practice/warm-up lap. The course was still really nice, slightly looser in the corners (the sports race had just gone over the course) but still rode really well. It didn't look like the course would get cut up much with all our racing. (Although, by my last lap there was a lot more roots about to pull a wheel in the wrong direction)
Our race started shortly after 2pm and I was glad to see that the pace was not too hectic up the first climb – it would have been evil if someone really tried to push the pace up that thing. All of us entered the first stretch of singletrack roughly at the same time (I was about 8th wheel, which made a great difference from two weeks ago - this in itself I was happy with). A few spills in front of me seen our group get separated a bit but it mostly bunched together again for the second climb. From there on there was a bit of position changing. A funny moment when I flew off the trail when a root caught my wheel with Peter Buggle telling me that happened to him on the last lap... I hopped back on and continued to descend and seen Peter do exactly the same thing in front of me! It was funny at the time...
Descending on the first lapThe whole race was pretty hard with those big (steep) climbs every lap but the amazing single track really kept me positive about them each time. I really started to ride the single track well from the fourth lap on and was happy with how I raced overall. I felt a lot better then I did two weeks ago, I don't feel fast yet but I feel stronger and better equipped to race now.
Fourth lap following along some amazing singletrackThe other thing about the race was that my bike really blew me away with how well it handles that type of course. The brain (rear suspension lockout) and weight of the bike was great for climbing but the bike really paid off when I turned onto single track. There were sections of the course that were riddled with roots but I really didn't notice them much (apart form one time when I had a bit of a spill...) - it simply floated over them. I really can't give the Epic a good enough review.
Some photos can be found here and here as well as a report here. Photos from the race on the blog came from here. Full results can be found here.
Next week it will be the third round of the K-Capital Cup so I'll be taking it easy enough training wise to get ready for it...
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Seasons first races - K-Capital Cup Round 1 and Des Hanlon Memorial Road Race
Last weekend saw me take part in my first race of the new season, the first round of the K-Capital Cup which was being held in the beautiful Kilruddery Estate. It is actually still really early in the season – it was a bit funny to have my first race of the new year, first race as an Elite and for it to be a UCI C2 event! Ahh well, nothing like jumping into the deep end :) I had been expecting the weather to be raining by the time my race started but luckily the rain looked like it was going to hold off. The course was a long 8km loop with two climbs (about 300m climb per lap), one very technical descent and lots and lots of amazing single track. The Elites had 5 laps to complete.
At 2pm our race got under way – a suboptimal warm up (will have to fix that for the next race) and a poor grid position meant that I was last into the single track (I made lots of novice mistakes). I followed along behind a few riders in the single track until we got out to the first clearing leading to the first climb. From there I started to go at the climb to catch up with the rest of the group. I caught and passed another couple of people by the end of the first technical descent but from that point on I was racing by myself (apart from when I was lapping people).
The Elites lineup for the start
Coming out of a little valley
Overall, the race was hard and left me more tired than any race I've done before... I was not over the moon with the way I rode (didn't feel very strong and was not very smooth on the single track) but I was happy with the way I finished in relation to the people around me. I really enjoyed meeting up and chatting to all the racers too – a lot of them I had not seen since the Marathon Championships last year... Photos and reports can be found here, here and here. The next MTB race will be held in Rostrevor on March 24th. But first...
Sunday seen me take part in my first ever road race. I took part in a Time Trial and a Hill Climb when I was in the US but this was going to be my first proper road race... The Des Hanlon Memorial was a 140km, 1800m climb race that was being held around Carlow. I didn't really do anything special preparing for it apart from cleaning up the bike and putting on my lighter race wheels as I was treating it mostly as just a hard training ride. The weather looked pretty nice for the race until about 2 minutes into the 4+ hour event. Riding in the peleton at 40km an hour a very heavy hail storm hit us. I thought it was a bit funny, my first road race and I get crazy conditions. I was very very glad to be wearing my Oakleys, every part of my body was being bombarded with little balls of pain – but at least I could see. The main brake in the field occurred about 40 minutes into the race at the first set of hills. The hail had cleared about 10 minutes and I thought the worst was over when Christmas Card snow reared it's head! Turning into the climb, I raised off the saddle and realised that my whole upper body was frozen – I could barely feel my arms and my legs felt num. The pace was increasing so I pushed hard (50kmph up a hill is cool) and I thought I stayed with the lead group but found out a little while later that there was another group of 20 or so riders a little further up. I didn't see it happen as, at the time, I was more worried about staying on the road and could hardly see 10meters in front of me with the snow! After that, the rest of the race played out as a hard enough paced training ride. The guys I was riding with didn't really want to make a go of trying to catch up and it was simply way to windy for me to try anything solo. Also, there was not much climbing for me to try and make time up myself. So I followed through for the next 3 hours and finished somewhere in 12-18 position. About 100 people started (rough guess) and around 20 something finished – lots dropped out due to the conditions. I look forward to trying a road race that's a bit shorter (maybe 3 hours or so...) and in nicer conditions later in the year.
Me sitting in second in our chase group about 84km in
At 2pm our race got under way – a suboptimal warm up (will have to fix that for the next race) and a poor grid position meant that I was last into the single track (I made lots of novice mistakes). I followed along behind a few riders in the single track until we got out to the first clearing leading to the first climb. From there I started to go at the climb to catch up with the rest of the group. I caught and passed another couple of people by the end of the first technical descent but from that point on I was racing by myself (apart from when I was lapping people).
The Elites lineup for the start
Coming out of a little valleyOverall, the race was hard and left me more tired than any race I've done before... I was not over the moon with the way I rode (didn't feel very strong and was not very smooth on the single track) but I was happy with the way I finished in relation to the people around me. I really enjoyed meeting up and chatting to all the racers too – a lot of them I had not seen since the Marathon Championships last year... Photos and reports can be found here, here and here. The next MTB race will be held in Rostrevor on March 24th. But first...
Sunday seen me take part in my first ever road race. I took part in a Time Trial and a Hill Climb when I was in the US but this was going to be my first proper road race... The Des Hanlon Memorial was a 140km, 1800m climb race that was being held around Carlow. I didn't really do anything special preparing for it apart from cleaning up the bike and putting on my lighter race wheels as I was treating it mostly as just a hard training ride. The weather looked pretty nice for the race until about 2 minutes into the 4+ hour event. Riding in the peleton at 40km an hour a very heavy hail storm hit us. I thought it was a bit funny, my first road race and I get crazy conditions. I was very very glad to be wearing my Oakleys, every part of my body was being bombarded with little balls of pain – but at least I could see. The main brake in the field occurred about 40 minutes into the race at the first set of hills. The hail had cleared about 10 minutes and I thought the worst was over when Christmas Card snow reared it's head! Turning into the climb, I raised off the saddle and realised that my whole upper body was frozen – I could barely feel my arms and my legs felt num. The pace was increasing so I pushed hard (50kmph up a hill is cool) and I thought I stayed with the lead group but found out a little while later that there was another group of 20 or so riders a little further up. I didn't see it happen as, at the time, I was more worried about staying on the road and could hardly see 10meters in front of me with the snow! After that, the rest of the race played out as a hard enough paced training ride. The guys I was riding with didn't really want to make a go of trying to catch up and it was simply way to windy for me to try anything solo. Also, there was not much climbing for me to try and make time up myself. So I followed through for the next 3 hours and finished somewhere in 12-18 position. About 100 people started (rough guess) and around 20 something finished – lots dropped out due to the conditions. I look forward to trying a road race that's a bit shorter (maybe 3 hours or so...) and in nicer conditions later in the year.
Me sitting in second in our chase group about 84km inTuesday, January 16, 2007
So long since I blogged
It's been so friggin long since I last update! Lots has happened since. I did a few races, traveled a good bit and had a great Christmas! So, I'll skip back to what was the highlights for me anyway...
Marathon Championships
Back at the end of September I took part in the Irish National Marathon Championships. It was the last major XC race in Ireland for 2006. It was by far the longest race I'd ever ridden and I was not so sure how to start out. The race itself was 52km of almost all soggy single track which I completed in 3 hours 54 minutes. My time put me in 6th position overall and 2nd Expert. I was really happy with the result as it placed me ahead of some Elite riders and I could have even been faster if I had not gotten a little bit lost a couple of times (I had to stop and wait for other people - there was one or two sections of the track that was poorly marked) and I also lost most of the use of my front brake for the second half of the race! The guy who won the Expert category was actually some Brazilan national champ or something... at least that's what people told me.... Robin Seymour won the race with Nial Davis coming in second 15 minutes up on me. I took the start way to easy (and got stuck behind people pushing their bikes up the hill), so hopefully I will be able to improve more on the race next year!
Mel finished 3rd lady (elite) in the race. She had a tough crash on a very technical descent that caught a lot of people – several people had race ending crashes on the descent. Her time of 5:21 was very impressive for a relative newbie!
The last climb of the race
Freeriding in Spain
A couple of weeks later I went with some of the Epic lads to Spain again for a bit of freeriding. I took my big bike again and had an amazing trip with a great bunch of lads. It was nice to be riding in t-shirt and shorts in 22C heat :)
Close to where we stayed in Spain
Road Hill Climbing in California
A while after that I was off to the USA for work. The work went grand and Kieran and I got to go on a few nice spins... One Saturday we climbed Mount Hamilton – one of the bigger road climbs in the Bay Area. The following weekend Low Key were running a hill climb on one of the more famous climbs in the area... Old La Honda. Everyone in the area knew their best time (was 18 minutes 20 seconds set in June) up it – classification for riders is even created from it as well as power calculators! There was about 55 people at the start (and one unicycle!). We went off in groups of 10 and when they asked for the faster people for the first group my brother stepped forward, so that meant I stepped forward. The skinny roadies looked around, almost in disgust as they saw a 'fat', hairy legged, MTB jersey wearing guy come forward :)
The race was cool. The group started fast so I hung in the back for the first 4-5 minutes (there was actually a bit of a draft, and this was going up a 7.4% hill). After a while I decided that it was a bit too easy on my legs so I went to the front and started to attack. Basically I strung out the group. After about 9 minutes the eventual winner attacked on a steep switchback. I decided to let him go (now, obviously I wish I didn't let him go). I had a couple more tussels with a guy who rides XC for the Santa Cruz Syndicate and another guy but dropped them with with about 1.5km to go. I finished strong and got a new PB. 16:59. (Kieran still has the Sherlock record by a few seconds)
future posts...
After I returned I went on my big trip of the year. A month long mountain biking trip to New Zealand. I've typed enough for this entry and I want to write a proper thing about the trip, so I'll leave those stories to another time. Some photos are here though.
Marathon Championships
Back at the end of September I took part in the Irish National Marathon Championships. It was the last major XC race in Ireland for 2006. It was by far the longest race I'd ever ridden and I was not so sure how to start out. The race itself was 52km of almost all soggy single track which I completed in 3 hours 54 minutes. My time put me in 6th position overall and 2nd Expert. I was really happy with the result as it placed me ahead of some Elite riders and I could have even been faster if I had not gotten a little bit lost a couple of times (I had to stop and wait for other people - there was one or two sections of the track that was poorly marked) and I also lost most of the use of my front brake for the second half of the race! The guy who won the Expert category was actually some Brazilan national champ or something... at least that's what people told me.... Robin Seymour won the race with Nial Davis coming in second 15 minutes up on me. I took the start way to easy (and got stuck behind people pushing their bikes up the hill), so hopefully I will be able to improve more on the race next year!
Mel finished 3rd lady (elite) in the race. She had a tough crash on a very technical descent that caught a lot of people – several people had race ending crashes on the descent. Her time of 5:21 was very impressive for a relative newbie!
The last climb of the raceFreeriding in Spain
A couple of weeks later I went with some of the Epic lads to Spain again for a bit of freeriding. I took my big bike again and had an amazing trip with a great bunch of lads. It was nice to be riding in t-shirt and shorts in 22C heat :)
Close to where we stayed in SpainRoad Hill Climbing in California
A while after that I was off to the USA for work. The work went grand and Kieran and I got to go on a few nice spins... One Saturday we climbed Mount Hamilton – one of the bigger road climbs in the Bay Area. The following weekend Low Key were running a hill climb on one of the more famous climbs in the area... Old La Honda. Everyone in the area knew their best time (was 18 minutes 20 seconds set in June) up it – classification for riders is even created from it as well as power calculators! There was about 55 people at the start (and one unicycle!). We went off in groups of 10 and when they asked for the faster people for the first group my brother stepped forward, so that meant I stepped forward. The skinny roadies looked around, almost in disgust as they saw a 'fat', hairy legged, MTB jersey wearing guy come forward :)
The race was cool. The group started fast so I hung in the back for the first 4-5 minutes (there was actually a bit of a draft, and this was going up a 7.4% hill). After a while I decided that it was a bit too easy on my legs so I went to the front and started to attack. Basically I strung out the group. After about 9 minutes the eventual winner attacked on a steep switchback. I decided to let him go (now, obviously I wish I didn't let him go). I had a couple more tussels with a guy who rides XC for the Santa Cruz Syndicate and another guy but dropped them with with about 1.5km to go. I finished strong and got a new PB. 16:59. (Kieran still has the Sherlock record by a few seconds)
future posts...
After I returned I went on my big trip of the year. A month long mountain biking trip to New Zealand. I've typed enough for this entry and I want to write a proper thing about the trip, so I'll leave those stories to another time. Some photos are here though.
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