Some footage Mel shot form the final lap of the Dalby World Cup. The riders are descending Medusas Drop
Showing posts with label world cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world cup. Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
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.
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| 2010 XC World Cup Round 1 - Dalby |
Monday, April 26, 2010
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.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Cyclocross Final Laps
The day after each of the World Cups (and other big CX races), TV coverage of the final lap pops up on youtube. I'm been watching them for the last few weeks - some amazing finishes. The video below is from last weekends race in Nommay.
Amazing to see the attacks and Sven almost bridging across to the lead pair. Niels Albert's riding style is also really interesting - out of the saddle a lot and a lot of upper body movement.
That course looks really amazing - fast wide corners and not too much mud.
Amazing to see the attacks and Sven almost bridging across to the lead pair. Niels Albert's riding style is also really interesting - out of the saddle a lot and a lot of upper body movement.
That course looks really amazing - fast wide corners and not too much mud.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Pietermaritzburg DH Photos
The day after the XC race, Mel, Alan and I watched the Downhill Race. As we walked the track we took a few photos - here is a selection.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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.
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 viewAt 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 StanderThe 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
Julien Absalon
Almost finished for the dayPietermaritzburg 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.
Monday, November 03, 2008
2008 UCI Marathon World Cup Round 2 - Ornans, France
For Mel and I, this year was about getting some International race experience – with this in mind, earlier in the season I decided that the final round of the Marathon World Cup series held in Ornans, France was going to be my last race. Flight options didn't look great, so Alan (who kindly put himself forward to help me for the weekend) and I flew to Basel in Switzerland VERY early (getting up at 4am does not agree with me!) on Saturday morning, i.e. the day before. Not really a good way to do things considering an early Sunday start for the long race but with work, what could I do?
When I originally planned to race here I expected it to be a nice warm, dry race for me at the end of the season – boy was I mistaken. The weather was much colder and wetter than Ireland – Dooh!
Ornans was a beautiful town nestled in a valley surrounded with wooded mountains – real postcard stuff with an atmosphere in the town to match.
Unfortunately (and this was mega frustrating) an administrive error in Ireland meant that my UCI points from the National Championships were not added to my UCI profile which effectively placed me in 185th position on the grid to start instead of somewhere in the 30s. I was very annoyed about it all but at the end of a long season, I just had to calm down and get back to business.
Race morning arrived with the car beeping at us telling us to be careful – it was -1 Celsius outside! There was basically a freezing fog in the air! I had not really considered such cold conditions and barely had enough cloths with me to warm up in – I was contemplating wearing a 'going-out' shirt under my jacket. The warm up itself was tough, I didn't have a turbo trainer with me and had to ride out of the town to find an area where I could ride without having to slow down every 10 seconds. I found a hill and started riding, about a minute later my fingers were frozen – I could barely shift gears or use my brakes but I was somehow able to get my heart rate up to the 170s (just) within the warmup. 15 minutes of that and I had enough and went back to the start line...
Alan grabbed my 'extra' clothing (I would wear a Gilet and arm warmers over my kit for the first 1.5 hours) and was called up to my start in 185th position – this sucked. Knowing that I had done everything correctly to be gridded somewhere in the Top 30 but yet have to start all the way back – not nice.
With the countdown reaching zero the gun went off... and nothing happened... damn this gridding. A few seconds later there was movement and my long race had started.
The first few kilometres were a bit of a blur – basically, I was doing everything possible to pass as many people as I could as quickly as I could yet remain safe. I only had one dodgy moment when a rider leaned a little too much into me but in general it was okay. With about 20 minutes of riding done, I started to approach the lead group which was about 30 strong. I had been killing myself as these guys cruised and as I caught on, the fireroad climb we were on deterioted into a wet and slippy double track and everyone sped up.
I did my best to stay with the lead group but I had already been working hard for a while fighting through the traffic and although my heart rate was still low, I felt a bit 'cooked'. The TV quads zoomed in and out between myself and the other riders and that helped pull me along – trying not to look too bad on the bike. Eventually, we made it to the top of the first major climb where Alan fed me at the first feed station (he had a busy day too driving from feed to feed). I grabbed a fresh bottle a headed onto the first big descent.
The race basically went on like that for the first half – I rode in groups of various sizes and mostly made up positions as I went along. At about the half way point, Roland Golderer and I started to ride together. I was on the front a lot of the time in the technical terrain but Roland put in a very strong push over a 6km flat section (about the only fast flat part of the course) towards the end of the course. When it came to the final 8 km hilly loop around the town both of us attacked and kept attacking. The last section of the race was the most enjoyable (and my HR the highest). There was a half dual-track, half single track long climb followed by a technical and fast singletrack descent back to the middle of the town. Fortunately, I was a little stronger than Roland and won the sprint. I covered the 82km, 3200m climb course in 4 hours 52 minutes placing 25th. That, and my other results means I'm currently ranked 42nd in the UCI World Marathon standins :)
Roland Golderer
One of the main things that stood out, was that throughout the race the descents were amazing – most descents were on singletrack and all descents were technical. The climbing was very tough but the descents made up for it – in fact, some of them were so long and tricky that you were hoping for it to end so that you can 'relax' a little and get the feelings back in your arms!
The weekend not only held the final round of the World Cup but also many other Marathon races suitable for everyone from purely recreational riders all the way up to the Pros. 1,000s took part and I highly recommend the trip to any rider.
After all this, I switched my brain into 'off-season' mode and enjoyed the next two days in Switzerland and France with Alan, drinking beer and eating fine food. Many thanks to Alan for coming along – I hope you enjoyed it all as much as I did.
When I originally planned to race here I expected it to be a nice warm, dry race for me at the end of the season – boy was I mistaken. The weather was much colder and wetter than Ireland – Dooh!
Ornans was a beautiful town nestled in a valley surrounded with wooded mountains – real postcard stuff with an atmosphere in the town to match.
Unfortunately (and this was mega frustrating) an administrive error in Ireland meant that my UCI points from the National Championships were not added to my UCI profile which effectively placed me in 185th position on the grid to start instead of somewhere in the 30s. I was very annoyed about it all but at the end of a long season, I just had to calm down and get back to business.
Race morning arrived with the car beeping at us telling us to be careful – it was -1 Celsius outside! There was basically a freezing fog in the air! I had not really considered such cold conditions and barely had enough cloths with me to warm up in – I was contemplating wearing a 'going-out' shirt under my jacket. The warm up itself was tough, I didn't have a turbo trainer with me and had to ride out of the town to find an area where I could ride without having to slow down every 10 seconds. I found a hill and started riding, about a minute later my fingers were frozen – I could barely shift gears or use my brakes but I was somehow able to get my heart rate up to the 170s (just) within the warmup. 15 minutes of that and I had enough and went back to the start line...
Alan grabbed my 'extra' clothing (I would wear a Gilet and arm warmers over my kit for the first 1.5 hours) and was called up to my start in 185th position – this sucked. Knowing that I had done everything correctly to be gridded somewhere in the Top 30 but yet have to start all the way back – not nice.
With the countdown reaching zero the gun went off... and nothing happened... damn this gridding. A few seconds later there was movement and my long race had started.
The first few kilometres were a bit of a blur – basically, I was doing everything possible to pass as many people as I could as quickly as I could yet remain safe. I only had one dodgy moment when a rider leaned a little too much into me but in general it was okay. With about 20 minutes of riding done, I started to approach the lead group which was about 30 strong. I had been killing myself as these guys cruised and as I caught on, the fireroad climb we were on deterioted into a wet and slippy double track and everyone sped up.
I did my best to stay with the lead group but I had already been working hard for a while fighting through the traffic and although my heart rate was still low, I felt a bit 'cooked'. The TV quads zoomed in and out between myself and the other riders and that helped pull me along – trying not to look too bad on the bike. Eventually, we made it to the top of the first major climb where Alan fed me at the first feed station (he had a busy day too driving from feed to feed). I grabbed a fresh bottle a headed onto the first big descent.
The race basically went on like that for the first half – I rode in groups of various sizes and mostly made up positions as I went along. At about the half way point, Roland Golderer and I started to ride together. I was on the front a lot of the time in the technical terrain but Roland put in a very strong push over a 6km flat section (about the only fast flat part of the course) towards the end of the course. When it came to the final 8 km hilly loop around the town both of us attacked and kept attacking. The last section of the race was the most enjoyable (and my HR the highest). There was a half dual-track, half single track long climb followed by a technical and fast singletrack descent back to the middle of the town. Fortunately, I was a little stronger than Roland and won the sprint. I covered the 82km, 3200m climb course in 4 hours 52 minutes placing 25th. That, and my other results means I'm currently ranked 42nd in the UCI World Marathon standins :)
Roland GoldererThe weekend not only held the final round of the World Cup but also many other Marathon races suitable for everyone from purely recreational riders all the way up to the Pros. 1,000s took part and I highly recommend the trip to any rider.
After all this, I switched my brain into 'off-season' mode and enjoyed the next two days in Switzerland and France with Alan, drinking beer and eating fine food. Many thanks to Alan for coming along – I hope you enjoyed it all as much as I did.
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