Swords Club League - Race 3 April 27th

GlennaMaddy wrote: »

watch out for the lads returning from Gorey, they'll be flying

I take it they'll be the ones in bandages....

macken04 wrote: »

Good luck, hopefully I can begin my racing carrer next year

Why wait until next year? The season has only just started, and if you're interested in racing give it a go this year

pprendeville wrote: »

from ridewithgps this circuit looks pretty flat. am i right in saying this?

Flattest course we do - a bit of a hill towards the cricket club, and a couple of drags after that. Just over 60m of climbing per lap

One very bad patch of road where you need to get your line right through the (poor) repairs a couple of km after the cricket club

Tonight both groups 2 and 3 were split in two. I was in the second part of Group 2. There was some confusion at the start, and a lot of those who should have been in my part of Group 2 actually set of with the first part - so they had getting on for 20 riders and we had about 8 - not only that, but those who placed in last week's race were in the first part of the group

We set off a minute or two behind. Some of the guys were clearly not used to up and overs and I spent a lot of time trying to shout instructions, which worked on occasions, but not all the time! Anyway, it didn't work out too badly being in such a small group. I tried to be inconspicuous in the group, but old habits die hard and I spent quite a bit of time at the front. I didn't mind though, as I was getting a very good workout, and was actually really enjoying myself. I was probably pushing a bit too hard on occasions, but I didn't mind pulling the others along

By the end of the first lap we had group 2a in our sights, and I tried to encourage everyone to try and close them down. We were even closer by the end of the second lap, and I pushed hard to close the gap, on the basis we would either catch them or I may be able to bridge over on my own. Unfortunately the next hill came up a bit too quickly and I sat up a bit allowing the rest of group 2b to catch up.

About 2/3 of the way round the 3rd lap we were caught by scratch (with a few hanging on from the other groups) - when Martyn Irvine sweeps past you know you are in trouble, and although I held on for a while my prior efforts eventually told, and I was dropped. Another group caught me about half a lap later and I stuck with them until about 3/4 of a lap to go.

I pushed hard to finish the race - my time was only about a minute slower than my fastest performance on the same course last year, when we were able to hang onto Group 3 for the last half lap or so. Given I spent well over half the race either at the front of my group or on my own, I'm not complaining. I'll put some stats up in the training log - power was just about peak for the race distance/time at 270w, although for the first half it was quite a bit higher

Not sure about all the placings, but understand Martyn Irvine won the race. He clearly took it by the scruff of the neck and the pace the scratch riders were going at managed to keep the groups from combining too much, which was probably not a bad thing given the numbers participating

macken04 wrote: »

Can anyone post me an info link showing how these races work? Wouldnt mind understanding exactly what your talking about

It's basically a handicapped race - in this case normally 5 groups of up to 20 or so in each group (although tonight there were in effect 7 groups)

Slowest ("limit") group sets of first, a few minutes ahead of the next group ("semi-limit") with the fastest group ("scratch") going last

The first rider over the line wins, and the idea is the groups work together (sharing the workload) to catch the grouops ahead, and stay ahead of the groups behind

If they get the handicapping right all the groups join up towards the end and it becomes a mad rush to the line. However there were so many out tonight if this had happened the roads would probably have stuggled to accomodate so many riders trying to get to the front at the end

macken04 wrote: »

@beasty thanks that makes sense. I take it this is different from the a4 / a3 stuff, sorry I should be looking this up.

A3s, A4s etc may be in a single race, in which case the same principles apply (with 2 or more handicapped groups depending on the number of racing categories involved)

Alternatively they may have races for individual categories, in which case the fastest group goes off first (and often do more laps than the slower categories), with the slower categories then going off in turn

English Bob wrote: »

Was in group 2

I think you were one of the ones that snuck into Group 2a when you should have been in 2b;) (from what I could tell they split it alphabetically, based on first names)