Club updates and spins

By peter@webme.ie | July 2, 2018

Well that couple of weeks just flew by and we are once again back reporting after that nice break away.  The weather has been incredible and thankfully it’s set to continue for a while yet! 🙂 We will take it and most definitely won’t complain! Just a few updates for you on what has been happening in the club over the last two weeks.

Championship hill climb

 

It was yet another beautiful evening for racing and a great turnout for our Championship hill climb event.

The route was a simple one with a little change from a traditional hill climb event giving everyone the chance to be well warmed up before hitting the big hill! The route started from Ballinamona Cross and headed along the flatish road to Dolla where they turned left and started into the roughly 6 and a half km of a climb with the finish all the way at the very top of Bolingbroke, on the straight just past the old school. Everyone was let off one by one in the same style as a time trial and it was a race between man(and woman, can’t forget you Eva 🙂 ) and hill. All aerodynamic aids were banned from the race to try to keep the playing field as level as possible so no one was allowed to use a TT bike or tri bars etc. to gain a big advantage on the flat section, they just had to rely on their grit and determination to get themselves to the top as quickly as possible!

There were some fantastic efforts put in on the night and once all the handicap points were applied the title of Club Hill Climb Champion 2018 goes to Eoin Woods, who was also the fastest man on the night too with a blistering time of just 24 min 49 seconds to conquer the 14.5km course!! Fantastic time Eoin, big congratulations to you!! Super results all round with another fantastic time from young Joseph Donnelly who kept Eoin very honest in his victory and was only a shade over 30 seconds behind Eoin on handicap to take second! Third spot had to be shared between both Michael Crowe who set another brilliant time of just over 26 mins, the second fastest flat time on the night, and another brilliant time from Dermot Kelly who was only a handful of seconds behind Mike once his handicap was applied and the two boys couldn’t be separated once the points were applied. There was really some fantastic times set this evening on the testing route and you all did unbelievably well with a special mention to John Caulfield, great to see you back out racing John, well done!! You can see the full table of results below. Thanks a million as always to Jan and Conor for doing the start and finish timing on the evening and Joey for marshalling. Well done everyone.

J Moynan TT3 Results

 

The race season is flying by with only a handful of races left to contest. On Thursday evening last we held TT 3 in the J Moynan TT series.  Numbers were down on previous weeks as alot of our members were working or away on their summer holidays which in fairness has to be done too but the show went on. It was blistering hot with the temperatures reaching 30deg on the evening which is very intense heat to race in but this didn’t deter a few hardy souls from taking on our usual 16km course from the Roundhill pub to the Fivealley roundabout and back to the Yellowbridge. There were some fantastic times set on the night with Andy especially continuing to make massive gains on his previous best time and when handicaps were applied we yet again had a tie for 1st place with Joseph Donnelly and Andy English taking the honours on the night. Well done lads great going.  Well done to everyone who raced on the night and thanks to Conor for timekeeping and thanks to Vic for the great photos of the race which you can see here

Club IGM and summer get together

We would like to say a special word of thanks to everyone who made the effort to turn up for our club IGM that was held recently and it was great to get your input on various topics that arose on the night. When the meeting was adjourned everyone enjoyed a few sociables. Thanks to Frank and Susan in the Dapp Inn for the use of their bar for our meeting…

National Championships 2018

Report thanks to Claire Ní Reachtagáin.

“The hottest day in Ireland since 1976 set the stage for my first ever National Cycling Championship race, the individual Time Trial. On Thursday 28th June I lined up with some of Ireland’s most decorated and talented female riders and I thought to myself, what on earth am I doing here! Nonetheless, thanks to the generosity of my fellow club members at NTW, I can say that at least I looked the part and in the cycling world, we all know how important that is. The TT was run on a 17.5km rolling circuit of which we had to complete two laps.With the sun beating down I somehow managed to survive the two laps even after a slight altercation with a car. I had hoped to place top 10, however I was happy enough with my 11th place finish. With no time to drink on the bike, 6 litres of water post-race I managed to quench my seemingly unrelenting thirst.

On to Saturday for my second National Cycling Championship, the road race. Thankfully it was a slightly cooler day, only 27 degrees! Again the field was stacked with talent. 33 riders signed on and rolled out to the 17.56km road race circuit. We had 6 laps to complete. The race was on. All that stood in my way was a 1.5km hill with an average gradient of 12% about halfway round the circuit! Inevitably on the first lap I was dropped from the bunch. I fought hard to get back to the bunch and got on about 5km later. I thought to myself, only another 5 times of having to do this! After the hill climb on the second lap I was dropped for good from the leading group, however there were other stragglers suffering the same fate as I was. I worked together in a group of four and then two of us split to catch a group of three on the fourth lap. However, we caught them just at the beginning of the climb and needless to say this time I was out the back for good.
The 8% ruling means that in order to get a finish time you must finish within 8% of the winning time, which was set at 4 minutes and 45 seconds per hour prior to the start of the race. As I was on my own coming to the end of lap 4 with no other riders in sight I calculated that I was definitely not going to finish within the time. My legs were well and truly cooked and it was only partially to do with the heat! I made a decision to quit while I was somewhat ahead and pulled up after lap 4. Congrats to Eve McCrystal (Garda CC) who claimed the National title in an epic sprint finish. Absolutely so well deserved, 7 years in the making.
I had a goal of at least completing the race but sometimes things don’t always go to plan. I firmly believe that it’s better to know when to stop rather than go too far and not be able to go back. It was a fantastic experience and I am so glad that I just threw myself into it. I had no expectations going into either race. I had my own mini-goals along the way, all of which are related to building on experiences from previous races. The more you race, the more you learn what to do and what not to do and I learnt plenty of both during the past few days!”
Claire what a fantastic achievement by you in what is only your first year of cycling.  Your hard work is paying off for sure. Onwards and upwards you go and good luck to you in our own NTW road race on home turf next week…
We would like to say thanks to Sean Rowe for the excellent photos of Claire in action.

Sunday Club spin

A great spin on Sunday morning by all acounts despite numbers being down due to holidays etc but the small group turned up at Moynans for the 9am start. This week they headed to Moneygall, Roscrea on to Birr and that is where they stopped off for a well earned coffee stop after 50km. When the bodies were refuelled, they headed on to Borrisokane and back to Nenagh covering 90km at a lively pace.  A well enjoyed spin and even the sun decided to break through the clouds and shine aswell!! Always a bonus. Well done lads.

 

Club midweek and weekend spins:

Tuesday: club training spin leaving from Moynans bike shop Nenagh at 6:30pm. 

Thursday: Club Racing: This week following discussions at our recent IGM, we will be trying a new format of race just to see if it works better and then get your opinions afterwards to see if you’d prefer our races going forward to run this way or to stay the same as they have been. This won’t count for the cyclist of the year as it is just a trial run to see if it makes the racing better and still be fair to all levels. As it isn’t counting for any prizes, there is no charge for entry but as this will affect how our races run in the future we’d like to see as many members as possible come out and give their opinions on the new format.

We will use our NTW open race official circuit that starts from outside the GAA grounds in Cloughjordan. There will be two seperate groups on the road. Category 1 and category 2 riders (the faster lads in plain english) will be merged and set off together first and then category 3 and category 4 will be merged and set off together a minute or two later. It’s basically two races with a winner in each group. This is just a bit of fun and more like an open race and it will give you a chance to see what it is like so please turn up and enjoy the night. We hope to see you all there as it’s just only a few days now to go until the real race takes place and a good opportunity to test and learn the course.

Sign on is at Moynans bike shop at 6.15 or at the race start in Cloughjordan outside the GAA grounds. Depart to race start at 6.30pm. Race starts at 7pm.  Route: Cloughjordan – Left at the main Dublin road out of Nenagh – Moneygall – Finish outside the primary school in Cloughjordan. 39km.

 

Saturday: Training spin leaving woodies at 9am.

Sunday: NTW Open Race 2018

It’s finally arrived and after all the hard work and preparation we look forward to welcoming everyone to our race event on Sunday 8th of July. We hope to see as many members as possible there on the day to support our riders and the event in general as this is another big day for the club. If you can help in anyway on the day please let us know asap. We wish everyone from the club and all other visiting competitors who are taking part in the race this weekend the very best of luck.

 

Thanks everyone and have a great week!

 

 

 

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