Tour of Ireland to pass through county Kilkenny

Captain Havoc

I'm pretty sure anyone interested in the sport already knows this but this Friday the Tour of Ireland will be passing through parts of Kilkenny. As far as cycling line-ups go the field is very strong. There will be 4 UCI Pro-Tour teams (the premier league of world cycling). The Pro-Tour teams are Astana who have former World Champion and 7 times Tour de France (TdF) winner Lance Armstrong. Team Columbia are here with 10 stage winner in the TdF + 5 stages of the Giro d'Italia and current world no.4: Mark Cavendish. On the books also of Columbia is last years Tour of Ireland winner and Italian time-trial champion Marco Pinotti. Saxo-Bank and Rabobank teams are the other two Pro-Tour teams.
Within the previous mentioned teams and the others are the national road champions of Denmark, Norway, Germany and Great Britain, plus the national time-trial champions of Slovenia, Germany and the Czech Republic. Ireland and Australia have entered their national teams. Cervelo Test Team were in this years Tour de France and have Irish rider Philip Deignen. Another team with an Irish interest is the An Post-Seán Kelly team.
The route will be heading over Mt. Leinster which is a category 1 climb (hardest after uncategorised), which makes it a decent place to watch. Borris has a sprint point which could see some hot action. Anyone who recently did the Tour de Kilkenny will be familiar with the route from here as the riders head to Graiguenamanagh and climb Coppanagh and decend into Thomastown after which it's men from boys time heading up Woodstock hill at Inistioge. Inistioge could see some of the strong climbers (Lance) try to break-away. Heading into a strong wind (usually) the riders will continue towards Listerlin and Mullinavat before arriving in Waterford.
If you're thinking of going up one of the climbs I'd get there early enough as I assume they'll close the roads to traffic at some point. They expect to be at the top of Mt. Leinster at 12.28, Borris 12.52, Graiguenamanagh 1.05, Thomastown 1.24, Inistioge 1.35, Mullinavat 1.50 and Waterford 2.28. For further info on the route click here
One rider who was selected on the Irish national team and sadly won't be riding is current Irish criterium champion and last years time-trial champion Paul Healion, who died in a car accident over the weekend. RIP.