What. A. Race. Not because of results (although the lads were riding well), but because of the event. Pi Cycles with Paul Birchall at the helm put on one hell of a show. The lap was one of the best we had ever ridden, and despite being the end of October, due to the unseasonal weather it was super fast. The lads rode around the warm up laps smiling at the brilliance of the lap and despite it being challenging, it was just plain fun to ride.
Ger, Robbie, and Kevin were first off in the B race and they both rode very well. Kevin was making his debut in CX and finished well up in the top 20. Robbie got off to a flyer of a start and was leading, then second for the first half of the race. Ger had a slow start, but had moved up to 3rd on his own. Then disaster struck when Robbie became a cropper at the barriers and broke his helmet. He managed to get a new one from Richie at the pit but was now just out of the top 10. Ger was on a stormer of a ride and lap by lap was putting time into 3rd place and was holding the gap to the leader. That was how he would finish, and his was the stand out result of the day. Robbie just snuck into the top ten, and was definitely on for the podium had he not crashed heavily. Stevie had made the step up to A racing and joined Richie and Russell on the start line. This was the strongest field so far in the league with the current National m40 champion and World m40 champion Robin Seymour in the field, along with many of the strong Leinster riders who made the trip down. Richie was on the front row of the grid and got off to a good start. Despite a couple of small falls in the 1st 2 laps he was on for battling for a top 5 until his chain got jammed between the chainring and the frame on the 4th lap, 6th lap and again on the 8th lap, putting him out of contention. However he still managed 9th. However due to the misfortune of others on the day, he moved up one place to 3rd in the Senior A league, and is 4th overall- 11 points off top spot with 3 races to go. However in the grand scheme of things Richie got off lightly with a jammed chain compared to the misfortune that befell Russell. While jumping the barriers on the 3rd lap, he hit the 2nd barrier and fell. Normally this wouldn't be an issue and Russell jumped back up ready to continue. However the bike wasn't so lucky. His frame had broken in half. This is every cyclist's worst nightmare. This was apparent when after the race half the riders came up to offer their condolences for his loss. It's a testament to his mentality and competitiveness that after the race, Russell was more concerned about the points he had lost in the league rather than the bike he had destroyed. Expect to see him primed and ready in 2 weeks time to put in a serious performance in Aghada. Stevie had a solid race for his first A race and finished well up in the m40 ranking. No bad luck befell him and he rode hard without incident which makes his story of the race a fairly boring one. (Get your act together and have a good story for us next time Stevie!). Big thanks today to Pi Cycles, Revolution Cycling Club, and Focus Munster CX team who were the promoters of this round. Visit them at www.picycles.ie. Thanks again to John Dempsey for his continued support of the league through Verge. Next up is DeRonde CX in Aghada on the 12th of November. Entries can be found here:
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The training is done (or not, but too late to worry about that now), and you are ready to go to the race. Maybe it's your first race and you are excited and ready to go. Maybe you have been thinking about this race ever since the last one. Maybe you got a result in the previous race and are looking for more, or maybe you didn't do yourself justice and looking to put things right. Either way you have analysed the previous race in great detail (possibly to an extent where your partner, colleagues, friends, children, have told you to stop talking about it.....), and are motivated to ride the next one. But what happens on race day?
The bags have been packed (and possibly the car) since the night before and everything is ready to go. All you have to worry about is waking up on time so as not to rush out the door in a panic. Being early is the way to go. Being late puts you on the back foot before the race has even started, and you will be chasing all the way to the start line. Give time for a relaxing stress free breakfast (there will be enough stress in the race), and then give yourself plenty of time to reach the event. Aim to reach the event between ninety minutes and two hours before the start time. This will give you loads of time to do things that take up a surprisingly large amount of time (toilet,sign on, chat, bike set up, more chat, banana, number pinning, drink, toilet, more chat, drink, warm up, toilet.......you get the idea). With time to spare you can afford to be sociable. Cycling is unique in that the camaraderie between competitors is strong and chatting, laughing, and joking with your "rivals" from other teams and clubs is part of the whole racing experience and one that adds to the enjoyment of racing. It also helps dissipate the nervous energy that everyone feels in the lead up to the race, and keeps you a little more relaxed. While you should be sociable don't let it get in the way of the important parts of your immediate preparation routine. Keep drinking and eating what you had planned, make sure that everything on your bike is working, and give yourself adequate warm up time. Arriving on the startline having a soft tyre, cold, or no race food in your pockets is not a good situation. Have a plan for the race. Even though this is bike racing and it incredibly is unpredictable, have a plan for your own performance. Are you going to be aggressive from the gun? Are you going to follow the wheels for a while? Or are you going to gamble on a sprint finish? Whatever your plan is, keep focussed on it. Nervous energy has a way for making people ride like lunatics, so having a plan will keep you as calm as possible in the most hectic of situations. Yes it may have to change if half the bunch are going up the road, or the race is splitting up, but having something to focus on avoids you panicking during critical moments of the race. This plan should also include when to eat and drink. Nutrition often gets lost in the chaos of racing so a set eating and drinking plan that suits you will ensure you don't get the dreaded knock which cripple your performance. After the race is time to enjoy a coffee and cake at the prizegiving with your fellow riders. You've raced hard (whether you got a result or not is irrelevant at this point), and you deserve to relax. Now is not the time to analyse and discuss your performance in detail with others. Sure we let each other know our version of the race and were we happy or not, but detailed performance analysis is for you and your coach to discuss. Sometimes we forget to celebrate the satisfaction of completing the race, it often gets lost the overall performance analysis, even though it is this satisfaction that keeps us racing! Go home and do more relaxing. Race day is not the day for performance analysis-leave that for Monday(remember you're never as good as you think you are when you get a result, but you're never as bad as you think you are when you don't). Have a beer or a glass of wine or two, a nice dinner, and bask in the satisfaction that you rode your bike faster than most people will ever do. You may have seen our blog on how to prepare for a cx race (if not you can find it here: race-preparation-cx-style.html), and we will have a road specific blog on race preparation as the season approaches.
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St.Finbarrs Cycling ClubEst. 1938 Archives
October 2017
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