Newbie ???

treborm

Hi
Fairly new to cycling, just training away myself at the moment think im making progress, the plan is to try a bit of racing next year.
So was thinking of joining a club, probably Lucan as i live and work nearby. Has anybody got any opinions on Lucan to join as a novice.
Also what time of the year would be the best time to join.

Are the boards saturday cycles up the Wicklow mountains open to newbies aint cycled up there yet been putting it off for ages but i suppose i better get started training for the WW200 next year.

Thanks
Rob

Lumen

treborm wrote: »

So was thinking of joining a club, probably Lucan as i live and work nearby. Has anybody got any opinions on Lucan to join as a novice.

Don't expect a welcome party. I didn't even get acknowledgement of my joining other the the Paypal receipt.

treborm wrote: »

Also what time of the year would be the best time to join.

Depends on whether you want to train with them over the winter.

I think Lucan has a reputation for being quite competitive.

I haven't had time to get out with them since I joined a couple of weeks ago, but hope to get more involved as winter approaches.

Idleater

i believe the 'winter training' / 'beginner spins' will be starting up in september. I'm pencilled in for then anyway.
Haven't joined the club per se, will see how the cycles go. Was told the club fees go jan to jan so there wasn't much point doing it now.

treborm

Hoping to train with them through the winter, mainly to get as much experience cycling in a bunch and assess my fitness levels, hope i dont get too much of a shock.

blorg

Lucan are in the league with my own club, Orwell. Also Usher IRC, UCD and Tiernans. They seem like a good bunch. The club league is the best way to get into racing, it is well handicapped and gets you started and able to learn the ropes in somewhat smaller bunches. I found it utterly terrifying to start but got far more comfortable after four or five races. Group riding experience is a prerequisite to race but a group in a race is very different to a group out on a training spin.

treborm

Whats the average distance in the league races and what kind of pace would you be looking at. Would there be time trials thrown into the mix.

zzzzzzzz

treborm wrote: »

Whats the average distance in the league races and what kind of pace would you be looking at. Would there be time trials thrown into the mix.

Races are short enough as they're run on Thursday evenings. Proabably somewhere in the region of 40-50km usually.

This year there were 3 flat time trials and 1 uphill.

I wouldn't worry about what kind of pace the races are - you can't compare it to riding by yourself.

Start getting out in a group over the winter, and then once you've some experience riding in a group you can start racing - don't worry about it if you get dropped - just come back the following week and soon enough you'll be getting around no problem.