Munster TT Championships & Club Updates

Good afternoon folks! We hope you all had a lovely weekend.

It has been a crazy few weeks in the lead up to the weekend just gone but what a weekend for the club! Hosting an event of this magnitude and the pressure of getting the timing done accurately for an event like this was massive but we have to congratulate our chairman and race director Owen Hynes and his team on running an incredibly successful event!!

The event attracted the largest number of participants for this event in memory and attracted some of the biggest names in Munster cycling. The weather was promised broken for the day but thankfully someone was looking down on us and it held fine and was even quite sunny all the way through the event!

The day started off with the under 12 and under 14’s event, run over an 8km course from the Yellowbridge to the finish line in Birdhill. It was fantastic to see all the young budding cycling stars of the future taking to the road and giving it their all!! There was a fantastic showing from all corners of the province but special mention needs to go to Kanturk and serious kudos to their development team for doing such a good job on bringing along so many of what will no doubt be some of our countries future stars of the sport, winning 13 underage medals on the day! There was great representation also from Newcastle West CC, Dungarvan CC, Tralee Manor West BC, Carrick Wheelers, Keeper CC, Killarney CC and TC Racing.

The main event was run over a longer and more testing course than it usually has been, from Birdhill to the Carrigatoher Roundabout (at the Five Alley) and back finishing in Birdhill at the same place as the start line, just under the 30km mark. This made it a different animal to tackle than previously but will no doubt stand to the participants who are going to soon be tackling the Nationals event, which is even 5km longer, in a little over 2 weeks! It is a fantastic Time Trial course and probably one of the very best in the country with a fine cycle lane covering almost its entirety and the turnaround being as safe as it can possibly be with a nice large roundabout to put you on the homeward leg and this being the only junction where you don’t have right of way on the entire course. A special word of thanks has to go to Nenagh Town Council who made sure the whole course was freshly swept of any debris for the event! Everyone was very complimentary of the quality of the course.

I don’t think anyone taking part found the opening drag up Kilmastulla particularly easy with also a nice breeze to contend with on the day but it wasn’t all bad as it helped everyone survive the heat from the sun beating down on them in all their aero finery! 😊 We had massive representation from every nook and cranny of the province and some serious competition for everyone which is really what everyone wants. The times that were set on the day were astounding with our fellow county rider and reigning Irish National U23 TT and Road Champion Michael O’Loughlin of UCI Continental Team Wiggins showing his form is certainly returning after his injury earlier this year and set a blistering new course record of 37 minutes and 32 seconds on our 30km course, that’s a 47.5kph average speed!! The second fasted flat time of the day went to A2 rider Aichlinn O’Reilly of Strata 3 / Velo Revolution, Cork with a fantastic time of 38 minutes and 25 seconds giving him the A2 Gold medal. Third fastest time of the day went to our neighbouring A1 rider from Newcastle West CC, Paul Kennedy who took silver in the A+/A1 category with another fantastic time of 38 minutes and 29 seconds. Superb stuff gentlemen!! Congratulations to you all!

Our own clubmates put in a superb showing on the day keeping our club colours flying proudly and bringing home 5 medals, 4 gold and a bronze! In order of flat times, Eoin Woods took home gold in the M40 category with a superb time of 39 minutes and 51 seconds. Michael Crowe took home bronze in the A4 category with a fantastic time of 43 minutes and 40 seconds. John Foote, with an astonishing time of 44 minutes 13 seconds, took gold in the M60 category! Joseph Donnelly, with an excellent time of 46 minutes and 44 seconds, took gold in the Junior category. The final medal to come back to the club went to Claire Ní Reachtagáin, with an outstanding time of 46 minutes and 47 seconds, to take the gold medal in the Women’s category.

A huge well done to all our other members who took part and made sure our club was well represented in the event, very well done to you all with some super performances on the day meaning we were very close to having even more medals stay in the club!! Keep it up now and bring back some Tipperary TT Championship medals next weekend!!

You can see more pictures from the event with big thanks to John Coleman here.

You can also see some great photos thanks to club member Brendan Hayden in the link here.

For the full results list you can see the results page here.

A massive thank you and well done goes to the huge numbers of participants who turned up to support the event on the day. Other clubs not previously mentioned and were represented were Tipperary Wheelers, Panduit Carrick Wheelers, Burren CC, Sliabh Luachra, Greenmount CA, UDCC, Killorglin CC, Nenagh CC, Dungarvan CC, Galway Bay CC, Tralee Manor West BC, Limerick CC, Clonakilty CC, Midleton CTC, St. Tiernans CC, Club Rothaíochta na Sionainne, Collins Cycle Centre, Viner Caremark Pactimo, Greenmount CA, De Ronde Van Cork CC and Slievenamon CC. We thank you all for coming along.

Also, a massive thank you needs to go to all who came out and helped us run this event and the preceding two trial runs in the last 2 weeks, you all did your club very proud indeed and ran a hugely successful provincial championships!! I won’t mention everyone’s names as there’s too many to list but you all know who you are so again massive thanks to you all, we could not have done it without you all!! Now onwards to our club open race next month on Sunday 8th July. All details will be published shortly on the website.

Club midweek and weekend spins

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

Thursday: Club Racing: Club Championship Road Race, sign on is at Moynans bike shop Nenagh at 6.15pm or at the race start and group leaves Moynans for the race start point at 6.30pm. Race starts at 7pm sharp. Entry fee €5. Start is opposite AIBP Factory, route is Borrisokane road – Carrigahorig – Terryglass – Ballinderry – Puckane – Ballyanny, 49km.

Saturday: Tipperary TT Championships / Tour De Burren

For further details of routes etc see https://www.tourdeburren.com/