The Wicklow 200 (2009) Thread

72hundred

locha wrote: »

My question I suppose is are cyclist allowed cycle side by side up to the white line or is it single file only?

This is OT (off topic) but you're legally allowed to cycle two abreast but you shouldn't take up the whole lane if for nothing else that courtesy for other road users.

Home:Ballyhoura

Home:Ballyhoura wrote: »

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?

The spreadsheet doesn't say much about 33...

Yeah I had a few people say 'go on the boards' at me when, eh, they were passing me out on the way back to UCD.

I bumped into one boardsie a few times during the day I think and who I was too tired and forgetful at half 6 yesterday evening to introduce myself properly. Was wearing a long sleeved jersey, tall(er than me) fellah.

lukester

niceonetom wrote: »

A very good day.

Tri-athletes in hot-pants and knee socks (dis-fcuking-turbing lads, really, no).

Yeah, what's with that. Spotted a few riders with bizarre, 80s looking knee-socks.

Effeminate, but not in a good way.

Gavin

Funkyzeit wrote: »

May have been me.. if so belated hello !

Me too ! I was dispensing chocolate, sweets and freaking Dirk out with my team radio.

Who was the boardsie with the red helmet and beard I kept bumping into, but never introduced myself?

petethedrummer

cunavalos wrote: »

Cunavalos ( The biggest FRED at the wicklow 200 - merlin titanium bike in full green KBS/Medifast Kit)

Yo, I rode with you from Donard to Slieve Mann, along with Adrian and Steve. I was in the Bouygues Telecom Jersey. You're a mentalist for riding up from Clonmel the day before (and back the day after).

Home:Ballyhoura

Dónal wrote: »

The spreadsheet doesn't say much about 33...

Could it have maybe been MadHatter no.333 ? Maybe I made a mistake with the number, all I know is that he was riding a Felt and that this could be him in the background in the following 2 pictures below.

Is this MadHatter?

MadHatter

Home:Ballyhoura wrote: »

Could it have maybe been MadHatter no.333 ?

You called? Yes, 'tis me.

Don't be so shy next time and say hello. I don't bite, most of time anyhow :pac: :pac: :pac:

Whereabouts did we cross paths? On the road or at a feeding point?

fletch

times are up
http://www.wicklow200.ie/2009/09times01.shtml
http://www.wicklow200.ie/2009/09times02.shtml

tunney

lukester wrote: »

Yeah, what's with that. Spotted a few riders with bizarre, 80s looking knee-socks.

Effeminate, but not in a good way.

Compression gear is very popular with long distance triathletes. Like
Most things the reasoning and purpose behind them is lost on most users. Hence something only really designed for use and only delivering results on the run being used on the bike.

Home:Ballyhoura

MadHatter wrote: »

You called? Yes, 'tis me.

Don't be so shy next time and say hello. I don't bite, most of time anyhow :pac: :pac: :pac:

Whereabouts did we cross paths? On the road or at a feeding point?

We didn't exactly meet up or anything, it's just I seemed to keep seeing you around in different places particularly on SM and SE, you were climbing well. I was wearing an orange euskaltel jersey under a semi-transparent luminous jacket on a white and red trek! This picture confirmed who I was thinking of! Haha...next time I'll say hello

Home:Ballyhoura

I heard blorg wore sandals for the event, but I was just wondering if anyone else ye saw wore them too? I did catch a glimpse of sandals going by at one stage but never managed to see more than that, probably was blorg so! Did you do it on a fixie or not (or was that just greyspoke)?

Cadex

Hey Madhatter - good to see you at the end, well done! Looking good when I saw you. Have a few pics attached. As I had to rush home at the end (for the concert mentioned previously), missed out on the final group photos (sorry) but did take one with the love of my life as definitely the best alternative.............! Sorry but it's - before the bath etc!

Ghost Rider

I was looking at that and trying to figure out what sort of superbeasts would get back to UCD for 13.27 and such like. Then it occurred to me: they were probably people who did the 100km.

That's right, isn't it? I mean, nobody does the Wicklow 200 in six and a half hours, start to finish, right?

fletch wrote: »

times are up
http://www.wicklow200.ie/2009/09times01.shtml
http://www.wicklow200.ie/2009/09times02.shtml

Esroh

Ther was a bunch of lads who are training for a Malin2Mizen sub 20 hours attempt. They were aiming for sub 7 and 5 of them came close to 6.30 with no stops.

Funkyzeit

Dónal wrote: »

. Was wearing a long sleeved jersey, tall(er than me) fellah.

Again I think this was me...Amazing how much quieter we all get when pain kicks in...

rflynnr

Gavin wrote: »

Who was the boardsie with the red helmet and beard I kept bumping into, but never introduced myself?

I'm guessing this was me, especially if the bloke you saw was on a Trek. Were you with Dirk and NiceOneTom at Rathdrum? If so, I should apologize for not introducing myself. (Oh, and cheers for the Turkish Delight: who knew they were still around?)

fenris

Did anyone else notice the guy on the MTB that cycled the 100 with a white plastic shopping bag tied to his handlebars that sounded like it was full of metal whenever he went over a bump?

SetOverSet

Only did the 100 myself on Sunday, well 135 door to door with 6hrs total in the saddle and an average speed of 22.5kph. I only started back cycling a year ago so that's my longest ride to date. Well done to everyone. Looking forward to the RoK and Sean Kelly Tour now
Barry from WWC has a blog up about Sunday. posting from my phone atm so can't link to it, sorry...

Limestone1

lukester wrote: »

On the Garmin thing, we have quite a variety of figures from different Garmins for the total ascent. Are they just inherently inaccurate, or is there some other factor at play?

I believe with my 305, its to do with the mapping inaccuracies and the degree of tolerance. If you show the terrain screen on the garmin as you are climbing steadily for example, you will regularly see large drops followed by steep climbs which reflects where the mapping tool has placed you beside the road or going on and off the road. This would mean your stats include lots of up and down steep banks beside the road that you don't actually travel. My total figures for the WW200 were +&- 3400 m !!
Picking up more satellites improves accuracy hence why the 705s should be more accurate and in fact some of the newer 705s have barometric sensors to measure altitude which would mean you are not relying on position at all (though apparently there are other inaccuracies with these).

Chips Lovell

fenris wrote: »

Did anyone else notice the guy on the MTB that cycled the 100 with a white plastic shopping bag tied to his handlebars that sounded like it was full of metal whenever he went over a bump?

Could it have been a bag of cans?

DirkVoodoo

SetOverSet wrote: »

Only did the 100 myself on Sunday, well 135 door to door with 6hrs total in the saddle and an average speed of 22.5kph. I only started back cycling a year ago so that's my longest ride to date. Well done to everyone. Looking forward to the RoK and Sean Kelly Tour now
Barry from WWC has a blog up about Sunday. posting from my phone atm so can't link to it, sorry...

His garmin reported over 3000m of ascending? Wow, surely that can't be right!

Love that blog though.

blorg

Limestone1 wrote: »

I believe with my 305, its to do with the mapping inaccuracies and the degree of tolerance. If you show the terrain screen on the garmin as you are climbing steadily for example, you will regularly see large drops followed by steep climbs which reflects where the mapping tool has placed you beside the road or going on and off the road. This would mean your stats include lots of up and down steep banks beside the road that you don't actually travel. My total figures for the WW200 were +&- 3400 m !!
Picking up more satellites improves accuracy hence why the 705s should be more accurate and in fact some of the newer 705s have barometric sensors to measure altitude which would mean you are not relying on position at all (though apparently there are other inaccuracies with these).

That is not how it works, GPS figures out altitude by triangulation relative to the satellites and where the unit is- even if you are standing right beside a cliff, it will put your altitude at where the unit is- put it another way, it knows nothing about the topography around you and, it only knows where YOU are. Take it on a flight and you will climb up to a very high altitude, it's not working it out based on the altitude of the ground below you. Hell, put the unit on a stick and lift it over your head and you should see a climb. GPS altitude is however less accurate than its 2D positioning.

Where your scenario could come into play would be if you had an erratic 2D course and then used an altitude correction feature in software on the PC- altitude correction DOES work on the basis of knowing the alitude of any point on a map.

BTW the 305 also has a barometric altimeter, as do all 705s. If you are getting regular sharp drops and steep climbs your unit is faulty and you should return it under warranty.

The problem with barometric altimeters is that they need calibration from a known altitude as air pressure varies from day to day and even during a day. The Garmin is the best of both worlds in this regard (when it works) as it auto-calibrates the barometric altimeter from the GPS. My own altimeter is broken at the moment and has to go back to Garmin (since February, just haven't got around to it.)

fenris

More like a bag of bolts and spanners! - he passed me on the way up sugarloaf when I was in the "if I click enough times a lower gear will magically appear" phase, overtook him on the way to roundwood and didn't see him again until I passed him in sandyford!

I know that you faster folks that eat hill for breakfast have your lycra clad nemisiseseseseseses (nemesi?) but this was like the weekend version of Helmet Man teleporting past after you overtake, slightly surreal and left me wondering if that ceiling tile stuff in powerbars reacted with the gels to screw up more than just my digestion!

irishmotorist

The_Claw wrote: »

Did anybody else get bitten yesterday? I woke up this morning to find literally about a hundred bites on my legs. Every midge in wicklow seems to've been tucking in.

Yes - I seem to have been very bitten - hungry blastards! I look like I have some kind of pox or something. It's mostly on my legs, a few new ones on my arms this morning and one on the back of my head somehow! I'm scratching like mad and it's actually much much worse than how I feel after 9 hours cycling!

LastGasp

decrrrrrr wrote: »

I was with two boards guys (didn’t catch their names) on this and the chat made it an easier climb. Emty passed us on the climb and I even got to see how he takes his famous pictures.

Way too many highlights from the day for me to put on paper.

Roll on next year....!!!!!!!!!

Hi Decrrrrrr (is that enough rrrr's ?) suspect that was me and AstraMonti. Emty passed us and took a few snaps - yet to see the results Emty !

LastGasp

That's my arm in the blue and grey, my boss in the Black/Yellow - cheer up Dennis, you're only doing the 100!

hmmm

Myself and a friend unfortunately picked Sunday to do a hillwalk up from the Glenmalure Inn car park to the ridge opposite Slieve Mann, not expecting to meet a thousand cyclists at full tilt coming down the hill. Spent thirty minutes jumping into the nettle filled verge

You made a great sight standing on the ridge though, the lines of cyclists took several hours to pass.

Home:Ballyhoura

What was the total distance covered according to all your computers on the Wicklow 200? I mean just for the allocated route, not anything extra. I got 192km on mine, MapMyRide says 190.85km and the Wicklow 200 Route sheet says 196km. As you can see, there is a bit of a difference between these but I have know way of telling which is the most accurate. Hopefully, with the average of your readings I will be able to calibrate my computer to near perfection...please reply! Cheers

blorg

I had 193.08km. You should calibrate your cycle computer from a tyre size chart or even better a roll-out test, I would not be trying to calibrate it based on what miscellaneous Boards.ie posters throw up, I am sure we all followed slightly different routes (e.g. I went straight through Enniskerry on the way back and up the wrong road into the Rathdrum checkpoint.)

short circuit

Home:Ballyhoura wrote: »

What was the total distance covered according to all your computers on the Wicklow 200? I mean just for the allocated route, not anything extra. I got 192km on mine, MapMyRide says 190.85km and the Wicklow 200 Route sheet says 196km. As you can see, there is a bit of a difference between these but I have know way of telling which is the most accurate. Hopefully, with the average of your readings I will be able to calibrate my computer to near perfection...please reply! Cheers

Live with it ...

With either numbers you are about 1 - 2% out which is good performance for any cycling computer. You will always have this amount of difference unless you are anal about having your tyre pressure etc. on the dot to a particular pressure and your weight + bike weight + whatever you are carrying on bike weight doesn't fluctuate one bit during the ride

You are also assuming that everyone took the exact same line through all the corners ... you'd be amazed how quickly this can add up as I found out running a marathon ... the distance is measured as the shortest 26.2miles cutting corners everywhere .. and when you run and take a slightly wider line ... you can easily clock up an extra 200 - 300mts over the course ... not funny after 26.2miles .. that you have to run another 300mts.

So over 190kms ... your computer is doing pretty fine.