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

Shinny new race bike

A couple of days before my first race I finally got my new race bike built up. It's a Specialized S-Works Carbon Epic and is pretty much my dream bike. I built up everything exactly the way I wanted it (spent months researching everything) and about the only thing that I might change is the wheel set (I'm using my race wheels from last year).

Complete, the bike weighs in at 10kg which is about 1.6kg lighter then the 'stock' S-Works build.

Just before it's first spin

The Pace RC39Xc fork is amazing - I now have the new XTR rotors on it

The drive train is full XTR M97x with a KMC 9SL chain


Ready to ride

As for how it rides... It's the best bike I've ever riden. Climbing, it feels as close to my road bike as I'm comfortable with and descending it does not feel too far for my Enduro. If your looking for a race bike, and don't mind spending quiet a lot of €€€, I think this is the ultimate bike.

Thanks to Starbike and Cycleways for helping get most of the bits together.

New Zealand 2006 Part 1

It's been a long while but I'm finally going to write about my New Zealand trip. It's been a while now but hopefully I'll remember the interesting bits. On November 18th I headed off to the airport for about 30 hours of flights and hanging around. I had the option of flying west or east to New Zealand but in the end I choose to fly via LA for a couple of reasons. First, it was going to be two long flights (Dublin – LA, LA – Auckland) versus 3 or more going via Asia and then the other, important reasons... There is some law in the US that means if you are travelling internationally then you must be able to take two bags. For me, that meant 2 x 32kg bags one being my bike. The airlines if I went via Asia only offered 1 x 23 kg bag... Just my bike gear weighs more then that let along everything else.

The flights all went grand – first tip, take a roll out, blow up mattress if you have to stay in an airport for any length of time between long flights. When I got to LA, I lay down and slept by the gate for 3 hours – felt like first class :) I was then in the mood of sleep and slept for a further 8 or so on the 13 hour flight to Auckland.

For my time in New Zealand I planned to hire a rental car. There are lots of different companies that offer 10 year old, ex-Japanese cars for cheap cheap. I used AEQ rentals and got an estate for around €20 a day. The estate had enough room in the back for me to chuck my bike in without having to remove wheels etc... Oh, another tip – for going into restaurants etc... when you have your €€€ bike in the car. Lock the bike to the seatbelt anchors in the back seat. At least that should stop any convenience robbers.

The Euduro just after I built it up outside my first nights cabin.

My first two days in New Zealand were going to be sent riding the trails in Woodhill. (Turned on the GPS - 18,457km from home!) It's basically a purpose built MTB park with an amazing variety of trails (although not much climbing – highest point was about 150m, lowest about 40m) I arrived off my flight, picked up my car and drove to Helensville where I was staying for my first two nights. I got a cabin (the guy was apologetic that it was SO expensive at €13 a night!), built up my bike and headed for the trails... I arrived at 6am into Auckland – lots of time to go biking on the first day. The trails were amazing with lots of stunts, drops and bermmed corners... I could ride there for a long long time... Over the two days there I got to ride all the trails (but not all the stunts, some were just crazy), about 90km in all.

Jumpers Alley

All stunts were sign posted with a rough difficulty - 1 to 5

Next it was a 4 hour drive down to Rotorua. Everyone I had met had told me to go straight to the Whakarewarewa Forst trails. A network of natural and man made trails that will be the cornerstone of the 2010 World Marathon Championships (I think...) Again, there really was all types of trails there with a great map of everything – some of the work that was put into these was simply amazing – trails sculpted out of the hill, it was artistic. Trails ranged from easy flowy single/double track to a National DH course. Again, I spent two long days riding these trails. I did most of the tracks but I knew that I would probably stop off here again on the way back to Auckland at the end of the vacation.

The view out over Rotorua

Me in Whakarewarewa Forest

After a beautiful drive through Tongariro National park on the Desert Road, I arrived in Levin... There are apparently some descent trails here, but I didn't find them. It had been pouring rain there for a couple of days and everything was as mucky and slippy as you could imaging... I gave up after about an hour and a half in the saddle. Then I tried to find something do for the evening there (it was Saturday night) but there is NOTHING there. Stay clear of this town!!! (Apart from an Indian restaurant half way down the main street – it was fantastic and pretty cheap too). The next morning I got up real early (about 6am, but for most of the trip I got up between 6am and 8am...) and left that place behind. My next stop was Wellington :)

Ngauruhoe Mountain (AKA Mount Doom) I would see it again later in the trip :)

My rental car

The night before I found out that one of the stages of the New Zealand DH NPS series was on at Long Gully close to Wellington. I had seen videos of the downhill course a while ago and thought it would be interesting. I arrived at the sign in anyway and got two practice runs on the course... The course itself was not very technical from a rocky, rooty, twisty perspective but there were lots of jumps and one Loooong Gully. The course would have been handy enough were it not for mother nature that day... It was the windiest day (Sally Gap a couple of days ago a close second) I had ever been on a bike. That didn't exactly make navigating tight single track on open mountain easy. On both my practice runs I ended up crashing and decided that I should give the race a miss. I had my body armour but the holiday was another 20 something days long and I didn't want to wreck myself in a race... If I either had more practice or the weather was a bit better I probably would have tried. I watched a few of the other people doing their runs and I headed down to Wellington for a touristy day.

The start of the downhill race - people were falling off the start ramp due to the wind!

The Long Gully

Wellington

Makara Peak MTB Park

Wellington was a very nice city – it had great restaurants and was VERY close to the mountains. I would live there if it wasn't so windy! (and so far away from everywhere else in the world) I then spent the next day riding the MTB park (Makara Peak) built close to Wellington. As usual, the tails were amazing and I ended up meeting a guy called Karl (who is running an MTB tour company). He was sound and ended up giving me the email address of one of his mates that lives in Christchurch.

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.

Last couple of 2006 races

The last couple of weekends saw two races and one weekend of long spins.

The first race was the final stage of the NPS series and was being held by IMBRC out in Slade Valley (the same venue as the MAD Rush a few months back). Horrible rain on the Saturday meant that the course was going to be very muddy (most of the course was on new cut trails). I did not get out on Saturday for a few practice laps so I warmed up before the race on a practice lap – the course looked good.

The race started and my legs felt fine with a fast pace but a poor line choice up a muddy dual track section (I wish I had more time to find the proper lines before hand) meant that I was stuck behind a few people for a fast single track descent (I did get to see one of the guys have a spectacular crash though). That dropped us out onto a fireroad which lead us to the top of the hill. I had a couple of battles on this lap and ended up going through start/finish in third place. On the fireroad climb on the next lap I caught up with second place – he hung on to me (exchanging positions a couple of times) until a hard steep climb towards the end of the lap where I dropped him for the rest of the race. Then, to my surprise, I found the race leader at the side of the trail with a blown out tire (I actually caught this guy on the last lap of the last two races we both took part in – a very quick guy). Now I was in an interesting position – a few people chasing behind but I was in front. For the last lap I basically went hard on the non technical terrain and took it easy on the technical stuff (trying not to have any crashes/mechanicals). The tactic worked and I won my first Expert NPS with almost a 4 minute lead. The win meant that I actually finished 2nd overall in the Expert NPS standings :) As a first timer, I was very very happy. Overall, I really enjoyed the race, it was cool to win, especially on a course that was so much fun. I think at this stage I'm pretty good at riding in the mud! :)

The Mel's race she ended up finishing 12th in Sports men or 1st women.

Mel just before the start of the race

This line looked nicer :)

The bomb hole at the end

The Mad winners from the weekend

Last weekend saw the Epic Blast. A lot can be said about this event. It was my favorite race of the year. It was basically a cross between downhill and cross country racing (so I took the Enduro). All sorts of riders arrived with everything from downhill beasts to carbon fiber wipit bikes. The format was basically a heat, a final and then the blast.

On my first heat I was hampered with mechanical problems the whole way down (pedals would not all me to clip in – try descending on clip pedals down technical terrain!) and eventually came in in 7th. In the final, I no longer had the technical problems and ran out to win the run. It was a lot of fun taking the jumps and drops at race pace not having to follow someone.

Finally, The Blast. 120 riders (170+ started the day) start at the top of a big hill and head straight over the heather for the singletrack. It's simply chaos! He is a video of the start.

Epic organized some great prizes for the winners (thank you BikeRack) and I was still buzzing from the event the next day. Hopefully next year there will be a couple more of these events!

A bit of an update

It's been a while since I last said anything. Over the last couple of weeks we raced most of them and had two weeks with no races. Aside from that, I watched a couple of movies and series 1 of “Six Feet Under” - which I liked. I have ordered series 2-5 now on dvd :) A group of us went to the International Comedy Club on Saturday– go to it, it was great. Two and a half hours of great comedy for €10!

First off was NPS 5 which was being held by MBUL in Killaloe. On the way to the race I had to pick Mel up from Limerick as she took part in an Adventure Race the day before. We arrived at the venue too late for Mel to take part in the Ladies Sport event so she would has to ride elite for the day. I started out on a practice lap and at the end of the very long climb on the lap, the heavens opened up. I had to then do a steep, very slippy descent on the worst rain that I had ever seen while on a bike. The course had started dry, so I had dry tires on, in a scramble before my race started I switched the front tire to something that could deal with mud a bit better.

A few minutes later, the race started for Mel and I – the course was quiet simple to describe. A long climb followed by a flat section followed by some more climb, then a steep twisty forest descent, a road section and a climb back up to the start/finish line. This race proved to be my best result this year by finishing 3rd. Mel, of course, had to ellipse me and finish first in Elite. Although to be fair, there was no 'real' elites in attendance.

Two weeks later Mel and I had a double bill! On the Saturday we would take in a two person team adventure race called the Annacurragh Adventure Challenge. It was basically a 17km MTB ride followed by a 6.6 km run (with almost 500m of climb!), followed by a 22km MTB ride (with a river crossing where the water went above my knees!) and then another bike section of about 16km. Mel and I made it back in about 4 and a half hours which placed us as the second fastest mixed team but unfortunately I missed two way points that we had to stamp our sheet at...

The next day, with tired legs, was a return to Castlewellan for the 6th round of the NPS series. The first round of the series was set in the same venue and I really enjoyed that race (It was my first race). Mel's race was on first and she finished first sport lady but more importantly, she finished 12th in Sport men. She had a great battle with a few of the guys around her during the race. My race started at a frantic pace, a pace my legs could not handle so I decided to take it a bit easier on the first lap or two. At the top of the first climb I was probably sitting in about 8th or 9th place. As the race progressed I started to feel a bit better and I started in increase my pace. I would say my last lap was the fastest of the race. I ended up getting 4th in this race which I was well happy with. This weekend of racing was the hardest on my body yet - my calves were sore for about two days afterwards. It was a good bit tougher then the Wicklow 200 earlier in the year.

Last weekend Mel and I rode around Slade Valley on the Saturday and on Sunday went on a long spin together. We had a rolling time of a little over 5 hours and stopped off in Enniskerry on the way home for pastries and drinks :)

The route Mel and I did on Sunday. It was about 63 km with around 1700m of climbing

In other news, Edgespace turned two years old :) I've also decided to go back to Spain for some more mountain biking in a couple of weeks and I'm still undecided as to where I'll be going for my big holiday this year... Africa, Central America or some MTB holiday... New Zealand maybe?

Me cutting our second birthday cake

Ahh, one last thing. I was riding along Sally Gap on my road bike last week and I felt something hit me on my forehead. Somehow, a bee flew through a vent on my helmet and stung me at 55km/h! The pain (and adrenalin) started and I removed the stinger. When I woke up the next day my forehead had started to swell. By 3pm, a doctors appointment was needed as I started to look like something out of Star Trek. After some antibiotics and a few days of looking strange, I'm back to normal again. I contemplated putting up a picture, but I think it's best not! :)

Paris

Two weeks ago Mel and I took a 5 day trip to Paris. The weather was beautiful although really really hot (I could hardly sleep in the first room we had). We basically walked around and had a look at the various sites and ate lots of yummy food.

One of the days we went out to the Palace of Versailles. I was actually quite disappointed with it. The best things about it were the gardens. One of the trips highlights was a meal we had in an Ethiopian Restaurant called Addis Ababa. Mel had not tried Ethiopian before and it was all cooked to perfection.

We met up with some of Mel's friends for coffee one evening

On the Sunday we got to watch the final stage of The Tour de France. We had to wait around for about 4 hours in the heat but eventually all the bikes rode through a few times. They were going by quickly over the cobblestones and it was reasonably difficult to figure out exactly what was going on.



Photos from Paris are here and there are a couple from The Tour here.

I'm selling some stuff!!!

Clearing out some of the stuff I'm not using anymore :) Click the links for descriptions and prices etc...

Stumpjumper Comp - Sold!
GBA - Sold!
Game Cube - Sold!
Sunglasses

2006 National Championships

Two weeks ago Mel and I took part in the National Cross Country Championships. It was a reasonable flat fast course a beautiful estate with a few small obstacles to navigate. The weather was beautiful, a bit hot if I have to nit-pick and MAD had a BBQ after the races.

Mel was off first in the Sports race – she had a great start but broken seals on her front fork (a SID race - order new seals from these guys) mean that she had zero suspension from about 4 minutes in. Mel finished 3rd overall in the Sports Women. Not a bad result for her first year and on a fully ridged bike!

Mel going down a fun section

Kerry going down the same section

She is still smiling too much - it's surposed to be hard!!!

A little later I had my start. The Expert race was four laps – Sport was two. I didn't start very well and crashed on my first lap. (Trying to pass some slower traffic :( ) On the fourth lap my legs were cramping up quiet badly but the end was near and I put in my fastest lap time of the day. I even got my first sprint finish against a Team Work guy winning by a second. I think I was a bit lucky as I caught him off guard :) Almost died after the effort though! I came in in 6th position which I was very happy with.

I think this is the VETs just after the start

It took all my effort to make the smile ;)

As usual, there are lots more photos here.

Sunset

Took this photo a while back out my window.

The MAD Rush

The weekend just gone by MAD were running their first proper race with the current set of members. Several months of planning and trail building left a course that was almost entirely single track with a couple of really fun sections. The aptly named Happy Valley was my favorite which was a chute into a slightly twisty (and very slippy with the rain) valley that had berms in all the right places to keep your speed up. I arrived home from the US the evening before (and then built up two bikes before getting to bed) so my race was basically total pain and lack of power on the ups (just look at my face in the photos) and fun on the descents.

Me entering the Happy Valley

Mel also got to race this race, winning her category, on her new bike that actually fits her – an S-Works hard tail. After giving out to me for a long time about my mens saddles she finally got a womens one with the bike – and guess what, she is changing it back to a mans because it restricts movement too much.

Mel smiling (too much?) on her new bike

The event went very well with everyone raving about the course, so hopefully next year we will be running an NPS :)

This week I'll be taking it easy ahead of the nationals at the weekend.

The last few weeks...

It's been a while since I updated my blog and lots has happened since.

First off I had the fourth race in the NPS series. It was held up in Balinastoe forest again. Unfortunatly, Mel was not able to race as she did not have a bike... (I'll come to that story soon) I pre-rode the track the day before the race in beautiful sunshine (It had not rained in about 3 weeks). Of course it had to rain all Saturday night and Sunday morning so I arrived at a muddy course. The race went quite well even though some sections became unridable. The descents were still great. [More photos]


The following weekend Mel and I took part in the Rogaine. It's basically two person team 24 hour orienteering event around the Southern Wicklow mountains. We were both well prepared kit wise so we happily set out on the long hike. I think that this, for me at least, was mostly a mental challenge. Physically it was not extremely demanding but it was hard to keep yourself going. For the experience, we slept out rough inside plastic bivvy bags for a couple of hours. We both finished well and conked out when we got back home. [More photos]

The next control was at the far side of the lake

Until we went to sleep it was difficult to get a rest because of the flies! We sat here for one minute.

Rain clouds were just leaving us...

Sunrise

For the last two weeks I have been in California on business (flying out the day after the Rogain!). I took my road bike with me so that Kieran and I could go out on a few spins over the long weekend (It was the 4th of July weekend over there). I even ended up doing my first road race when I was there. A Low Key Time Trial race over a 16km slightly hilly course. I enjoyed the race.

Wow - I want to be able to do this!

Found this on the Epic forums. Watch all of it, it gets progressively crazier!

Wicklow 200

Last weekend Mel and I got ourselves involved in the Wicklow 200. It's basically a 200km tour through the Dublin and Wicklow mountains with about 3,300 meters of climbing. Mel left about an hour before me (you can start anytime between 6am and 8am) so that she had more time to complete it and that we could meet somewhere in the middle.

The course was really nice taking in some beautiful mountainous scenery – a good chunk of which I had not seen before. I eventually caught up with Mel, who was riding my cross country bike with skinny tires, about 4 hours in. I was very impressed with that – I was flying along on my efficient road bike (got it two weeks ago – lots of fun - it's red :) ) and it still took 4 hours for me to catch her!

It was a beautiful day for that type of event – mostly sunny, not too warm and both of us really enjoyed it. The pizza and ice-cream afterwards tasted great.

There were photographers along the route – here are all the photos I could find of Mel and I.

The descent off the Wicklow Gap

Starting the Slieve Mann climb

Blue Steel

Mel after she finished