Club Notes / This weeks spins

Hi all, we hope you had a good week

Club dinner and awards presentation

Saturday evening we had our annual awards night and it proved to be a huge success. A beautiful meal was served up in the Thatched cottage and everybody had the chance to catch up and mingle. After the dinner the awards were presented to club members who won races and championship races during the club season. Peter Moynan was inducted in to our” NTW hall of fame” and was presented with a framed certificate on the evening to mark the occasion, congratulations Peter! We would like to thank the Thatched cottage, Ballycommon for their warm hospitality as per usual, the meal was just fantastic. Thanks to all who helped out on the night to make it a big success. Special thanks to Vic for taking the photos on the night for us (see them here) and also to Peter and David Moynan for the lovely tokens that were provided to everybody.

Saturday morning we had a group out for a club spin and they completed a 100km spin getting in some very good winter miles. The lads took a few minutes rest on passing through Cloughjordan the second time around and attempted to recruit a guy standing at the side of the road… You can see the lads explaining about the merits of wearing a helmet to him in the picture below. Shortly after setting off again, Joey’s morning spin came to an abrupt halt when his free hub gave up under the pressure he was applying! Rob was under a little bit of pressure for time so the group took a detour near nenagh and escorted him home safely which resulted in a surprise mystery tour getting back to Nenagh. Apparently Anita is going to ride up front on the next spin as she felt the pace being set by Pat was too slow 😉

Tuesday and Thursday evening we had our usual winter turbo training sessions take place and they are going very well with members getting in some very good base training, Well done to all.

This week’s Club Training spins (New Sunday Initiative, see below) are as follows:

If any of you are heading out for a winter spin put up a message on WhatsApp and you may get a bit of company.

Tuesday: Club turbo training session from 7pm to 8.30pm in Stereame. Contact Pat on 087 6744400 for details and directions. 

Thursday: Club turbo training session from 7pm to 8.30pm in Stereame. Contact Pat on 087 6744400 for details and directions.

Saturday: Intermediate cycle 40/50km in distance,  leaving Woodies at 7.30am.  Anyone who wants to is very welcome to join in on this spin. You can contact William on 086 2447888 for more details.

Saturday: Winter training spin leaving 9am from Woodies carpark. Route is decided on the morning by those present. If anyone wants to change the time for this put up a message on the Whatsapp group and see if it suits everyone.

Sunday: Leaving at 9am from carpark at Moynans. (This weeks mentor is Gary Rowan) We’re going to try a new initiative depending on who turns up to split into three groups with defined speeds to try and help people get back out and make progress in both technique and fitness.

We’ll split into 3 groups if the numbers allow;

1. Firstly a “Green” group that will be for beginners/leisure and that group will be held at 20-24kph average. This group will have a senior rider mentoring and controlling the pace to ensure it stays low enough for any beginners. If we don’t have anyone who wishes to ride this slow then the mentor will go with the Orange group.
2. The next group will be the “Orange” group which is an intermediate group and will be controlled at 25-27kph average. We have plenty of intermediates that are fit enough to control this group but for the next few weeks if we could get another senior rider to volunteer to go with them to help fine tune the groups riding etiquette and control the pace so the group works well together and doesn’t split the same way the senior group works, it would be much appreciated.
3. Finally we’ll have a “Red” group which will do in the region of 28-32kph average depending on who is out.

These 3 groups are to split up in the carpark so there is no confusion about what group you are going in. The mornings mentor should take a lead in sorting this on the morning. All groups are going to do the same route at the start and we’ll be completing a short loop with a coffee stop so everyone gets to enjoy it, not just those doing a long spin. This first loop from Nenagh should only take about 2 hours cycling give or take (at green group pace) so even the beginners or anyone with time constraints will be able to come out and get back home early. The Red group will leave the carpark first separately, followed by the Orange group and finally the Green group. Leave a little gap (30-60 seconds at least) between groups so there is no confusion which group you’re cycling with. If you want to move up into a faster group it’s entirely up to you, by all means give it a go and if you’re suffering too much then the best thing is to let the group know you want to fall back to the other group and then turn around, keep moving to prevent getting cold and you’ll be picked up by the following group within minutes. Everyone at some point will want to give a faster group a go so don’t be afraid to have a go if you feel you want to, the lads and ladies will always be full of encouragement!

So, for this week’s route, we’ll be doing two loops with the first being 45km, Moynans – Cloughjordan – Moneygall – Obama Plaza for coffee – back to Nenagh. From there the groups can decide if they want to do the second loop which brings the spin up to just under 80km, out the old N7 – Turn left for Silvermines – Dolla – back to Nenagh.

We’ll try this next weekend and see how it goes. If you have any ideas on how we can improve this to encourage beginners and leisure cyclists to get out there and enjoy the whole experience of the Sunday group spin then by all means let us know.

Have a great week out there folks!!