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The Wicklow 200 (2009) Thread
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Speak for yourself, I found it by far the toughest bit of the day myselfFor everyone who found this bit tough, I will say that a few more years of cycling will make all difference. Once you build a bit more leg strength up, it's possible to keep motoring over this kind of terrain even when you are tired.
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This is true. The unit itself just records actual elevation at each track point, it is then up to the software to interpret this. Sporttracks has different degrees of smoothing that can be applied to the data, so you can even get different figures out of one program! The basic question is whether you consider a mildly undulating road to be a sequence of climbs that you add all together or "flat". Also some software/definitions will only count climbing over a certain minimum gradient (typically around 2%.)
Well, yis all cycled the same hill. That's one bit of data we can rely on.
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Congrats to everyone who took part. Agree with most of comments, marshalling was good, organization and selection at food stops was poor (although luckily I got to each one before the main rush), and a lot of the riding was careless.
I started with sy at a leisurely enough pace, before the boards.ie train (blorg, emty, kenmc and a few others) came steaming up and I jumped on the back. Spent most of the trip to Donard with kenmc in various groups. Met a mate of mine in Donard, lost kenmc and eh when I punctured just after the food stop. Carried on with my mate until we caught another group that were ticking along nicely so hid in the back of that for a while until Slieve Mann. Found Slieve Mann tough at the bottom, but recovered well to finish strongly. Found Shay Elliot tough the whole way up, just couldn't get a rythhm going. From Shay Elliot to Rathdrum, and then Rathdrum to Enniskerry, we had no groups to fall into, and my mate's legs were gone due to lack of training, so I ended up to doing most of the pulling. Physically, I was feeling fine but it it did drag on a bit. Eventually we got caught by some lads from Waterford Tri club so we attached ourselves to the back of them until the finish line.
Overall, delighted to have done it and glad I put the training in. Probably won't be in a hurry to do it again. I've found other sportives (Tour of Kildare, Swords) to be bettered organized and more enjoyable.
Time in saddle was 7h 26m for the event itself, but have to add a bit as a I initially put the the front wheel on the wrong way after the puncture, noticed a couple of hundred metres later when I realized the speedo wasn't working! I'll add 2 mins to give me the same time as kenmc
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Add in the 30km+ round trip from home and not a bad days work all in.0 -
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Sorry if this is a repost but all yez are on the front page of the W200 website. Tiny's Pink PX taking ride (pride) of place!
Well done to everyone. I'm green with envy.
Tiny, get better soon. CRC sell spare patella's and ligaments. Seriously, hope you're ok. 0 -
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A very good day.
The Wicklow 200 certaintly attracts all sorts. I saw more fat freds on squeaky bikes than I have ever seen, but I also saw the fourth greatest cyclist of all time. In the same event. And the moulton man was there. And the 'bent. Tri-athletes in hot-pants and knee socks (dis-fcuking-turbing lads, really, no). Guys in their 60s who could drop most of us like a hot potato. Lost couriers, complete with chrome bags. And boardsies. Lots and lots of boardsies.
In the hurry to get from car to sign-in without adding to our lateness I put the front wheel of my bike on backwards. It took me until we were on our way out of Enniskerry to notice I was going a 0.0kph. It took me until Sally Gap for me to figure out why. In Donard (take my rant about Donard as read please) I finally flipped it, but I've still no real idea how long my in-saddle time was. I'm estimating at something like 7:40ish judging by who I was with for most of the day. I'm pleased with that as it's faster than I did last year and I didn't find it anywhere near as tough.
The only time I had to dig deep at all was when emty got some up and overs going on the road between Rathdrum and Djouce (just where is was really needed actually, that undulating road into a headwind goes much faster like that). I knew I wasn't alone in finding the pace a touch anaerobic when the usual banter evaporated. We all did a few turns, but by the time we reached the dip-and-rise before the slog past Djouce woods there were only 3 or 4 remaining and barabus was still denying all knowledge of his obvious sadism. At one point he said he felt he had a touch of the bonk coming on. This was, of course, a ruse. Within a minute he was attempting a solo breakaway to get to the drop off Djouce first and establish a gap. My awesome aero skills allowed me bridge across and by Enniskerry the pace had settled down to chatting speed. Emty was relieved.
It was great to see so many boardsies as well - I'm really not at all pushed on the WW200 as an event; there are better sportives with better routes and better sambos (and cake! there was no cake!!!) - but it's really worth it because it's the big X on the calendar for so many of us (Marmottes and Etapes aside). It's the justification for those cold, wet dreary mornings we suit up and get out on the bike, even when we really don't think we want to. When we see that pay off, as it did for so many here yesterday, well, it's worth it, isn't it? How many of us are already saying "a few more kms in the legs, fewer pints in the belly, more saturday spins, more mid-week intervals in the park, and this time next year..."?
So, here's to fredfest 2010. There'll be even more of us, and we'll be even fitter. 0 -
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Saw a few couriers too, I wonder if the chromes bags are surgically attached to them ...
I saw a few Lidl bikes, saw them and pointed at them ... and then, others were doing the same thing ... they better get used to it I guess.
No cake yes ... we all noticed it was outrageous ...
Next year I will be fitter, faster, stronger etc.
Mick Byrne was better cakes does make a diference! 0 -
Sorry in advance for the extremely long post but I have nothing better while slouching on the couch recovering from the tiredness, you don't have to read it if you don't want to! Here it goes! Good luck...haha!
Hey guys, I did my first Wicklow 200 yesterday and I have to say it was a fantastic experience. I didn't really know what to expect or how I would do to be honest. The longest cycle I had done beforehand was a flat 118km, although I do have "race" fitness but that is usually only tested over distances between 60-90km so endurance would not be my most developed area of cycling (however climbing is thankfully, its definitely my strong point due to a good power to weight ratio)!
Anyway, thank god for such decent weather. I was happy with what I wore (underarmour base layer, ss jersey, paper thin-lightweight pack jacket, shorts and overshoes - I'm so glad I wore the overshoes, it was such toe freezing weather due to wet roads and wind. I'm just sorry I don't have knee warmers, they would have been nice at times but all I have is leg warmers. Definitley my next purchase, any recommendations?)
I seemed to pace myself well despite the lack of experience. I fell in with a group of three Slaney CC riders and myself and the occasional tag along. They were sound out and very clever with respect to pacing ourselves. About 5km outside of Donard I had my first flat in about 5,000kms!!! (Only 500km since I put on the Michelin Pro 3 Races, just replaced front tyre due to large gash and now the rear is ready for the bin too due to the amount of cuts. Not worth the money, any recommendations again!?) Not a great time to get one as I lost my place in that group and never saw them again. I must have lost 20mins here because I had fixed it, pumped it up to a crappy pressure with my micro pump, then borrowed a pump (off another guy who was fixing a puncture in the exact same place at the same time) which broke the valve on the tube! Then I had to repeat the whole process over again and struggled cautiously to Donard on about 50psi in the rear until I found a track pump and replaced my two tubes for €14!
I found myself in small groups from time to time from here on, nothing more than 5 people at a time and for no more than a half hour. Therefore a lot of solo work for the second 100km, especially on the awful headwind section. I flew up those climbs to be honest, the wind on Slieve Maan was terrible. My first time ever cycling in this part of the country and it is really beautiful (hills but also scenery!). I had two 750ml bottles on the bike, one was always full and I never used it and the other was nearly full most of the time too. This combined with the extra weight in the saddle bag and in the back of the jersey was a lot more than I am used to carrying and really weighed me down on the climbs (I know the same goes for everyone else), but what I am really saying is that this is the first time ever I have noticed the benefits of weight saving when it comes to the hills!
I also followed the sound advice of other boards users to eat and drink regularly, even if you don't feel like it. I know if you do feel hungry, its probably too late. I had a large breakfast of cereals, pasta and a banana which basically kept me going for the first 1.5 - 2hrs. After that I tried to eat one of my 6 cereal bars every half hour to three quarters of an hour (I had a combination of different flavoured Granola and Nutri-Grains just for a bit of variety). I skipped the Donard stop due to ridiculous queues and the lost time due to puncture. I had one of my 2 bananas, filled up on water and kept moving instead. I only used one of my 3 gels on that killer section between Rathdrum and Roundwood.
I didn't do the cycle with anyone else, and found it difficult to get talking to people, especially when I wasn't with any of them for any reasonable amount of time. Next year I'll surely be wearing a Boards.ie jersey and benefitting from the kind community atmosphere and encouraging chat I have been hearing about! I did bump into a boardsie wearing number 33 occasionally on the route but never introduced myself, anyone know who that was?
Below I have attached my file details (as seen on polarpersonaltrainer.com) taken from my Polar CS200 Cad. I only realised afterwards that I had some extra left in the tank, as I had been much too conservative due to my inexperience. I actually smashed my goal of 9hrs ride time and could have actaully done better had I known this! Next time. In case ye were wondering my HR average of 145BPM is around 70% of my max. The unusually slow cadence is due to my tendancy to grind a big gear when going easy, especially when rolling along at an easy pace in groups. Don't worry, it usually 97-100 when road racing and 107-110 when time trialling. I like to see my new max speed of 70.9 km/h which I think I got at 168km of MMR (175km of Route Sheet) down Djouce. There was a bit of a difference between the total distances I saw, 190.85 on MMR, 196 on Route Sheet and 192 on my Polar! What did ye all get, just trying to work out which is most accurate and wether or not I need to readjust my wheel size settings. I don't really mind as I did another 10km cycle back to Heuston station with my big suitcase on my back to bring it over the 200km (just proves I still had energy!). The cycle from Heuston to UCD the day before was actually more difficult than the event itself due to the torrential rain and not having that slightest clue where we were going! However in the end, the accommodation was very good (although we were supposed to check out at 10am, but we pushed that to the limit when I got back at 4pm...haha!)
Now go to sleep and recover from reading this! Hope ye enjoyed it just as much as I did typing it, I just allowed me to relive the event! Ye should try it (only messing, seriously dont!)0 -
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we re-took him on the descent for some claw back of the shameCaroline_ie wrote: »
UUshhhh!!! remove that post now! 0 -
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