2009 Sunshine Cup - UCI C1 XCP Tochi to Kalavasos

I have a few posts to write about actually getting to the race in Cyprus with all our equipment (and my new equipment :) THANK YOU Cycleways and Alan for picking everything up), but first I'll jump into a race.

Today's race was a UCI C1 class point to point race from Tochi to Kalavasos Village in Cyprus – in fact, the finish line in Kalavasos was around 400 meters from our front door! It was the first round of the four round Sunshine Cup. The course itself was pretty fast (although the day of raining on Friday may it pretty tacky/muddy in places) – 47 kilometres with around 1500 meters of climb. Almost the complete course was off road on rocky (lots of them pointy) fireroads and not puncturing was going to be an issue - I ripped a massive hole in a new tire when I prerode part of the course the previous day. The descents were very fast but I wouldn't call the course technical at all.

Mel preps race bottles... (thanks Anglus and Theodorus for the feed support!)

...while I prep the wheels

Race morning arrived and neither Mel or I felt in race mode. It's the first of the season and the nervers were at us and we were wishing to just staying in bed a little longer and going for a nice leisurly ride later in the day. That's not why we are here so we grab all our preprepared things and took the short drive over to the start in Tochi.

After a 25 minute warmup we headed over to the call ups – fortunately, I got a second row gridding, which was useful as there was 50 riders in the Elite Men's category. Looking around, the race was stacked – basically everyone had flown in for these races and the people meant business – it was like a mini World Cup!

The course profile - the climbs were steep!

The gun went off and the group accelerated up the first long climb. The first climb was around 20 minutes with some very steep pitches and my legs were not liking it. The head of the group stayed together for around the first 10 minutes and then started to break up on the steeper pitches. Usually, I love climbing but today my legs were not running – my heart rate was pegged but I didn't feel great – not bad, just not great. I guess my body was asking, “what the hell are you doing to me!” - Ryan to body, this is what you're here for!

With very steep and fast descents off the climbs there was never really much time to recover, climb for 20 minutes, descend for 4, repeat – it was physically very tough. I rode constantly among other riders (which beats most races in Ireland) and that was fun (or was it pain, I can't remember – I'm trying to forget).

One interesting thing was a river crossing at the back side of the course. Here I am, riding a descent, about 40kph and I see then UCI water crossing sign, I ride around a blind corner and hit a river – it must have been 2 feet deep and about 12 feet wide. Riding through it was like jumping into a pool – I was 100% completely soaked. I had never seen anything like it! (the important bit was I hit it at 40kph - it was nuts)

The little villages we passed through were cool too, zipping through tiny alleys hoping there is no stray cat or old woman washing her door step around the next corner - a big rush.

Anyway, a group of 5 of us rode mostly together for the second half of the race with an Italian, Francesco Panza and I breaking off with about 10km to go. Francesco got a bit of distance on me and I rolled in behind him into Kalavasos 2:04 after I left Tochi. I finished up in 25th (50 started) and am reasonably happy considering I didn't do any race prep for it – there were lots of highly ranked riders behind me (and in front) so I wont complain too much. For me, I'm here for the training and the experience of riding with these great riders and I got a lot of both in today.

Make sure you head over to Mel's blog see how Mel rode today :) (She is buying dinner)

Cycling News has a bit up about it too here.

MTB Videos from Ireland

There has been a massive increase in the number of high quality well made MTB movies coming out of Ireland. This one is from a pump track in St. Annes Park.


Chuckies Trails from Victor Lucas on Vimeo.

I'm really looking forward to see what the Break the Cycle video will look like.

Here is the trailer:


Break the Cycle Trailer from Andy Yoong on Vimeo.

Another from Andy Yoong that I seen at the Wee Adventure Film Festival.


Colin Ross rides Cave hill (short version) from Andy Yoong on Vimeo.

Making pretty charts

Two road rides this weekend as most of the trails are still too slushy (I wondered into the mountains on Friday but soon turned back due to the conditions).

On Saturday, I was doing a little prep for for next weekends racing and my legs felt great. I felt like I could keep pushing and pushing. Sunday, my legs felt pretty dead for the long ride except when I was pushing the pace a bit up the climbs.




Recovery today, and my legs need it!

wow

Amazing Tricycle Jump - Watch more Funny Videos

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And again, snow

You would think I would get bored of putting up snowy pictures but it really is so unusual to have this much snow over here for such a length of time. A lot of people where out today, on sleds, snow boards, skis and expensive cameras. Everyone seemed to be happy except the people stuck in the cars in the traffic jams up top.

The bike has actually been pretty good to get around on and a lot of the main roads are starting to clear. The Military Road through the mountains is still a no go though.

I really should take up my nice camera rather than the iPhone to take picutres.

A few more winter pictures

Today, I was out on a recovery ride and took a few more photos at the start of the military road.

 

 

 

 

More snow complaints

The roads looked clear enough so after a warmup on the turbo trainer I ventured out. I didn't expect to be able to ride off road but I went up to Ticknock carpark anyway. The Tarmac road had a lot of snow but there was a dug in compacted track to the top of Three Rock (only 4-5 inches of snow there versus 12-18 all around it). It was tricky riding but beautiful. Not exactly training but I was working on my balance and smooth pedaling! As I turned, a big snow storm blew in (and is still here more than two hours later) so I guess everything is impassible again. I think it will be another week before off-roading will be possible again :(

The top of Three Rock

The top of one of the climbs I usually do on the road bike

When the storm rolled in, I had to revert to this - will probably be doing lots more of it in the next few days

More Snow

This is the road I wanted to do some power tests tomorrow on the road bike - I don't think that will be happening. My internet was even brought down by the crazy weather conditions.

 

 

 

Seesh! I need it to go away!

A change in the weather

I went riding from this:

To this, in a day:

It's actually pretty amazing - I have not seen this much snow around Dublin City before - in the mountains, yeah, but down where I live the snow sat all day. Ireland's weather is getting more like that of the continent... I hope we get the long hot summer.

Funny Gran Canaria Pictures

Walking around I've seen a couple of funny things - these are a few of the things that I actually bothered to take my camera out for

We were walking to the beach in Maspalomas and found a random weighing scale

The following are unusual for their use of cool sounding English. I guess Chinese and Japanese guys get to laugh at us all the time.

I was going to pick this up for Mel as a present - I don't think should would be impressed.

A day in my GC life

Mel has just gone back to Ireland (college meetings to physically attend) but I'll be staying here for another week. With that, our little apartment seems rather quiet so I thought I would sit down and write something.

These last two weeks have been amazing. Both our lives during this period have been pretty much focused on two things. Work (the thing that pays the bills) and cycling. The separation here from our normal routine and distractions has allowed us to become very efficient at both and I get a good feeling of being on top of the work and training for the new season. The weekends are fun, and rest days (Mondays and Fridays usually for me) are mostly about work and a tootle to the beach for lunch but the real benefit that I have found is in the other three days of the week. At the moment I'm getting in 3-4 quality hours on the bike each of those days (a little less if I include any intensity).

I climbed up this today...

... and met Mel for coffee here before she left

It is a simple life – one that I could only really stay focused in for a few weeks without a change but I have enjoyed it. You really do ONLY work, ride, sleep and eat.

2009 KCNC Components Arriving

As the start of the season draws closer. Boxes and packages from our sponsors have started to arrive. One of the first boxes was from KCNC right before we left for Gran Canaria. I have been using KCNC components (Seatposts, chains and skewers) for the last two seasons and am looking forward to expanding the components we use this year (and dropping another few grams from the bikes).

For me KCNC are a company that makes lightweight, durable (who cares if it's light if you can't finish a race) and very affordable components. The part that I have been most impressed with has been their seatposts. For 2007 and 2008 I raced off-road on the Ti Pro Lite which weighs just 150 grams. It has been a set and forget component for me and I really can't praise it enough!

I have not setup the new parts yet but from the onset, for 2009, the road 11-23 cassette really stands out - at just 114 grams it drops more than 100 grams from the cassette I used for road races last year. Come October 2009 I'll update with how it lasted a season's racing.

Anyway, here are pictures (on scales of course) of a selection of the bits that arrived.

KCNC Ti Pro Lite Seatpost - 150 grams

KCNC 110mm Stem 106 grams

KCNC 11-23 10 speed cassette 114 grams

KCNC Bar Ends 52 grams

KCNC Road Brake Callipers 161 grams

KCNC Road Skewers 45 grams

KCNC 100mm Stem 100 grams

KCNC MTB Skewers 45 grams

KCNC SC Bone Flatbar 117 grams

Mel and I will of course update our blogs as more shiny bits arrive - I love this time of year :)

2009 Gran Canaria

As anyone following me on Twitter or Facebook would know (yes, I joined Facebook – I resisted for a long time but gave up at Christmas), Mel and I have currently relocated to Gran Canaria for a few weeks. This is by no means a holiday, just a chance to do what we usually do, work and cycle, in slightly warmer surroundings. I organised most things and Mel took the important role of finding accommodation, a cute little apartment in Vecindario with blazingly fast internet (vital for the work end of things!).

My days are now filled with long road rides (no MTB with me unfortunately although I hope to hire one at the weekend) followed by the rest of the day working and then off to bed. A simple life with little distractions and I'm really enjoying it.

Since we arrived, we have basically gone on two hard rides, a rest day and then repeat.

I had known that there was a chance of rain on the first day we arrived - down at sea level it was fine, but as I rode towards the 1,700m peak of the days ride the weather turned misty and rainy. Fortunately, it was still around 20C when I got back to our appartment.

The next day proved to be 100% dry affording some spectacular views.

Mel enjoying our rest day. We tootled around for an hour and found the nearby waterfront.

5 days and counting I have been wearing shorts :)


Yesterdays ride seen clear skies and gorgeous views all day - it's so easy to go on long rides when it's warm and sunny and you have these panoramas.

Tenerife in the background

The profile from yesterdays ride

New Years Day

 

A picture from New Years Day when Mel and I walked around Glendalough. January 1st is our annual "go for a walk/hike" day. Lunch in Laragh was great afterwards.

Riding the "Best Descent"

I've been enjoying a lot of off road riding these last few days now that I'm back home. I had to stop and take a picture of this today - one of the descents in our area. And yes, that is a huge drop to the left - later you actually skirt along the edge.


I had bone dry trails for the last few days, but today things started to get wet again :(