Carlow this weekend

rubs

Anyone race this event over the last few years? Just looked on the website and it seems its a combined A3/A4 race over a good distance. I`ve heard conflicting reports that is hilly enough.....any insights?

blorg

Haven't done it but hope to this weekend. I've done some of the climbs on the Tour of Ireland sportive last year and so yes, it is a bit hilly as far as Irish races go.

From the website it is looking like there are three seperate races:

Race 1 - A+ A1 A2 (3x Laps) 145Km
Race 2 - A4 (1x Lap) 62Km
Race 3 - A3 (2x Laps) 103Km

Chips Lovell

Anyone driving down? I'm on the lookout for a lift.

blorg

el tonto wrote: »

Anyone driving down? I'm on the lookout for a lift.

As am I

Diarmuid

I hope to get down to it but it's still TBC (friends around for the weekend). I'll try and confirm asap. If so I can give you 2 a lift.

Chips Lovell

Thanks Diarmuid.

blorg

Diarmuid wrote: »

I hope to get down to it but it's still TBC (friends around for the weekend). I'll try and confirm asap. If so I can give you 2 a lift.

I think it would be your sort of race Diarmuid, would remind you of the Alps... sort of :pac:

Chips Lovell

Found this route on mapmyride. Looks like it was uploaded by Carlow CC.

madrichie

This is a great race and well organised and I'm ragin' its clashing with round 1 of the nps series otherwise I'd be there in a shot. The course is relatively flat till Castlecomer then you've got plenty of hills to deal with (tho the route posted does look different to last year where the S3's had 2 laps of a loop around Castlecomer, the Butts, Rossmore, Crettyard).

In last years race a few guys tried to break early and I think they stayed away for about half the race before being caught. In the main bunch everything was quite pleasant until we got to the first climb in Castlecomer when the pace when through the roof and I got thrown out the back... great fun all the same tho

ryan_sherlock

I'll probably be doing this race - hilly by Irish road standards. Annoyed it clashes with the NPS though.

I wrote something about it before: http://ryansherlock.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009-des-hanlon-memorial.html

madrichie

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

I'll probably be doing this race - hilly by Irish road standards. Annoyed it clashes with the NPS though.

I wrote something about it before: http://ryansherlock.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009-des-hanlon-memorial.html

me too! With graphs and data and the like

http://richieclose.blogspot.com/2009/03/des-hanlon-memorial.html

Toblerone1978

The Butt is a savage climb. I've only done a couple of races so far but haven't came cross one that is a third the size of this one. Only went up the hill on Saturday, it's 3.7km long.

shapez

Toblerone1978 wrote: »

The Butt is a savage climb. I've only done a couple of races so far but haven't came cross one that is a third the size of this one. Only went up the hill on Saturday, it's 3.7km long.

Correct me if I"m wrong but I think that climb has been excluded from the race for the past couple of years now.

Captain Havoc

Toblerone1978 wrote: »

The Butt is a savage climb. I've only done a couple of races so far but haven't came cross one that is a third the size of this one. Only went up the hill on Saturday, it's 3.7km long.

The other hill is coming out of Comer, it's pretty steep, I'm on it just about every week but going the opposite direction(must bring you up that way some time). It'll be nice and fast going to Kanes Bridge after that.

blorg

I reckon I'm out of this due to illness. If I am feeling a bit better by Sunday may do the Ardrattin 200 at an easy pace.

fondriest

Did a lap of this tonight and its a very tough route . Maybe my terminal allergy of hills made the route look worse but there are a lot of long drags with not a lot of recovery room between them,there is only the one steep climb and that one is not too long just as you leave castlecomer.NO bunch sprints this weekend.

Captain Havoc

fondriest wrote: »

Did a lap of this tonight and its a very tough route . Maybe my terminal allergy of hills made the route look worse but there are a lot of long drags with not a lot of recovery room between them,there is only the one steep climb and that one is not too long just as you leave castlecomer.NO bunch sprints this weekend.

I was on part of it this evening myself. I'll probably head up to the Éire Óg club before I go into work on Sunday for the craic.

Lumen

I'm probably on for this now as the tonsillitis seems to have cleared up.

Boardsie roll call - who's in now?

Me: Orwell jersey, white helmet, Scott Addict.

Sorry I've not been forthcoming with lifts this season, life is still pretty chaotic.

DirkVoodoo

I really would prefer to race tomorrow but the distance is too far for me to get there. I'll make do with the 200km spin.

Raam

Out. Sick.

Mr. Skeffington

Im going to give the 3 lapper a go tomorrow, might see some of ye there tomorrow, looks like its going to be a lovely day for it.

E@gle.

I hope to make this, will be in the A3 race

Diarmuid

Looks like I can make it. Whoo hoo! Come on Dick, you know you want to!

DirkVoodoo

Yeah go for it Dick, win that race....wait a minute, who is Dick?

Captain Havoc

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Yeah go for it Dick, win that race....wait a minute, who is Dick?

Dick Dastardly in the wacky races I assume:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C6QVnDCrVw

Diarmuid

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Dick Dastardly in the wacky races I assume:

That's the one! He's a shoe-in now that Dirk, our grimpeur-in-waiting, is bailing!

Chips Lovell

I'm in. Got sorted for a lift with a mate.

Diarmuid

Finished in the lead group of about 15, great race.

Lumen

Diarmuid wrote: »

Finished in the lead group of about 15, great race.

Well done Diarmuid!

That course was fantastic. I cannot imagine much more suffering.

Short version of my race: got dropped on the climb.

Long version...

Feeling a bit weedy after two weeks off with tonsillitis, I pottered around near the back of the bunch until "the hill", then dropped my chain. Got it back on with frantic spinning and clicking, but I was then way off the back of the bunch.

Hammered up the hill grabbing wheels and passing people but couldn't quite make the lead group. A chase group of about six formed. Then the real suffering started. Endless climbing, pain and suffering. Climb, turn, climb turn. Are there mountains in Carlow? Climb, turn, climb turn, not quite there. Breathing ragged. Still 50m off.

Then about 2/3 of the way up I decided to slow my breathing, then the elastic snapped and no amount of wheelsucking could get me up. Despite many shouts of "jump on" from passing groups I was absolutely empty, and the "race" turned into a WW200-esque plod to the finish.

Loved the new gearing (53/39,12-23); could have used an 11 but wasn't slowed by it.

The HED Ardennes felt nice too.

No stats as I am currently Garmin-less. Took 2hrs or thereabouts.

Diarmuid, got any power stats from those climbs?

For those that did the Tour of Louth last year: this felt like that hill, only five times as long.

Mr. Skeffington

Jeasus that was a very tough race, break went on the first lap and stayed away for the whole race. Finished safely in the bunch, horses ran into the peleton on the 3rd lap. On the descent to the finish a support vehicles door opened and wheels and gear fell onto the road in front of the bunch descending to the finish! Mad day happy to have hung in with the A1's, especially with Ryan Sherlock driving it up all of the hills, the mans a savage!

Diarmuid

Well "enjoyed" that. First 35k was steady. Bunch felt safe enough, moved up to the front on the climb at 18k and stayed up there until the left hander at Byrnesgrove. There was a good steep climb at that stage so I moved right to the front and stayed there for the next 20k. Lots of ups and down but nobody was prepared to really work together. There was 2 other Dundrum guys (Patrick and Patrick I think) at the front too. At some stage we broke from the bunch but TBH I don't know when or how. There was no real particular point that stands out as being the point when the power really went down.

At about 50k I had to really dig to stay on after the wheel I was following let a gap open. On the descent to Carlow we lost a few more on the corners (gravel) to falls, including one of the Patricks, but ended on the main road in a bunch of about 15 I'd guess.

Didn't have a clue what to do at this stage, was staying either first or second position but not putting in a big effort. It seems there was a breakaway ahead of us all the time, a solo rider, and he was caught with about 5k to go. Poor guy looked like he had fallen otherwise he would have won it. Anyways some guy made a jump with 1k to go, and finished a few meters ahead of the bunch sprint. I watched the sprint from about 20meters behind and got a birds eye view of the rider who hit the cone and did a multiple somersault. Broken wrist I heard. No idea of my placing, I'd say 10ish but that would be just a guess

First sunburn of the year, and a good days racing. Can't complain.

Power as requested:

Power Zones				
Critical Power: 266				
Zone	Description	Low	High	Time
Z1	Active Recovery	0	146	50:19:00
Z2	Endurance	  146	199	17:51
Z3	Tempo	        199	239	16:48
Z4	Threshold	  239	279	14:07
Z5	VO2Max	        279	319	08:54
Z6	Anaerobic	  319	399	10:15
Z7	Neuromuscular	399	MAX	06:23

That's a lot of time above Threshold!
Attached file is a csv.

blorg

Was the finish where your power was up around 325? I'm presuming the bit after was cycle back to the sign-on. Given the previous effort on the hill suggests you should be well up for placing, e.g. if you can get the position right and peg it at the end. Did you feel you had it in the legs but just "didn't know what to do?" You'll get that from experience and the club league should help too.

Well done, sounds like you had a good race which dropped most of the field.

ryan_sherlock

Missed break (stupid stupid me) - chased with Martin Irvine and Tim (of the Irish team) as hard as we could but failed. All the 'big' guys were gone so it turned into a training ride. Break had 3+ minutes but with 45k to go we had it down to 1:25 and I thought we could get em - then that F**King horse incident. Not so happy with the orgainisers - they should have had given them more than enough warning to be off the road (In Ras Mumhan there was 15-20 lead vehicles!) - lost about 1-1.5 minutes there and all momentum. Just rode hard enough to finish.

Funny, I tried to get a break going a bunch of times, say 7-10 strong riders but everything was chased down, and do you know what the people did when they caught us, they sat up - giver uppers!

333W Normalized Power for the race for me (3:40 ish racing time) (I was doing a lot on the front). With close to 30 minutes in anerobic power zones so I did get a good workout anyway...

Toblerone1978

Done the A4 race. Like almost everyone, I got dropped on the climb just outside Castlecomer. A bit annoyed that I didn't last a bit longer although I know there was no way in hell I would have finish with the front group.

Well organised, great route (I should have taken the time to get to know the route), fair due to Carlow CC. Looking forward to it next year already!!

Toblerone1978

Diarmuid wrote: »

I watched the sprint from about 20meters behind and got a birds eye view of the rider who hit the cone and did a multiple somersault. Broken wrist I heard.

I met the guy afterwards in the dressing room. It seems that it would be news to him if he broke his write! A nasty gash on the arm seems to be the extent of it. A Dundrum fella.

Diarmuid

Toblerone1978 wrote: »

I met the guy afterwards in the dressing room. It seems that it would be news to him if he broke his write! A nasty gash on the arm seems to be the extent of it. A Dundrum fella.

ummm I heard about the broken wrist from the 2 organisers at the finish line about 1hr later, can't personally verify that. He wasn't in Orwell but could have been from Dundrum

The horses definitely looked spooked when we passed.

ET.

Not Sure how to post a quote, but I know know the man who crashed. He is a Slaney CC rider. He was taken to hospital by ambulance with a suspected broken wrist - no more news at this stage. Not funny

jwshooter

he is in waterford hospital waiting for a operation on his wrist ,lets hope its not to serious

Lumen

ARMSTRONG TAKES HOME THE DES HANLON TROPHY

King Kelly

Yeah He's a Slaney CC Rider. Was sprinting for 2nd place. We think his pedal clipped one of the traffic cones keeping spectators back at the side of the road and lost control. After a 4th in Balbriggan a few weeks ago he's disappointed his momentum didn't take him across line for the 2nd place!

I know he checks out the site so if you are reading Paul, I hope the new Felt and the R-Sys wheels are stronger then your wrist!

Lumen

@Diarmuid: thanks for the stats.

Your peak 20 min power of 259W (on the main climb, presumably) was 93% of your Cruagh hillclimb power, which is pretty impressive in the second half of a 2 hour race.

This is a useful benchmark of the power currently required to stay with the leading A4 group on decent climbs. I think it's safe to say that if you can't crack 20 mins on Cruagh you're likely to get dropped in an A4 race with any proper hills.

Now I don't feel quite so bad about failing to catch up after my inept chain drop

Raam could have been several minutes up the road by the top of that climb...

benarent

Hey guys.

I don't post here often, but wanted to share some pics from the A4 race. The leader crashed, so don't know if he was caught later. http://bit.ly/9aFCgo. There are full size images there to. I put my photos under creative-commons, so anyone can use them (with attribution) as long as it for non-commercial work.

Ben - UCDCC

shapez

benarent wrote: »

Hey guys.

I don't post here often, but wanted to some pics of the A4 riders. The leader crashed, so don't know if he was caught later. http://bit.ly/9aFCgo. There are full size images there to. I put my photos under creative-commons, so anyone can use them (with attribution) as long as it for non-commercial work, and

Ben - UCDCC

Many thanks Ben. Unfortunately the leader was caught with about 3k to go and one of my clubmates jumped the group with a superb solo effort to win the A4 race. http://www.comeraghcc.com/?p=1919

Chips Lovell

Really enjoyed yesterday's race even if I did get dropped like a stone half way into it. Toughest circuit I've done since the Stamullen GP, probably harder I'd say and definitely one for the lads who can climb. Tried a bit of an attack early in the race. Was easy enough to get a gap but no one went with me so I trucked along for a bit and let myself get reeled in.

It really does live up to its billing as one of the big ones on the calendar. The relentless climbing is followed by a dramatic dive down back into Carlow, which would make for a great finale if you were in contention. Thanks for the warnings about the sharp right hand bend, which was a bit hair raising.

@Lumen, you look far too happy in those photos.

King Kelly

Video of sprint for 2nd position A4 race - OUCH

http://www.slaneycyclingclub.com/