Traders Cup - Dundalk, Sunday February 26th 2012

C3PO

I'm very tempted to have a go with the "Old Codgers/Ladies"! I regularly get beaten by the girls in the MTB races so I'm well used to it!

Beasty

Plenty of Boardsie representation across the three races today. They let us off last, with about 20 or so in the group, only 3 of us were "over 50 A4s" though.

The first lap was at a reasonable pace, with no breaks of note. We averaged 33.5kph. On the second lap 3 ladies broke away on the drag round the back of the course. I started closing them down and then LDB came up to me and suggested we bridge, which we managed to do. Some time later we were joined by about 5 others, but importantly one of the other vets, Hugh Byrne was not one of them. Hugh is a renowned sprinter and I didn't fancy my chances if he was still in the group at the end. I therefore decided to keep the pace up and led for most of the next lap. We averaged 35.1kph on the second lap, and I heard from Hugh after the race that he and about 4 others had been close to rejoining on a couple of occasions, so the pace I put in probably kept them at bay

On the final lap it was basically the 10 of us, with some of the others pushing it a bit up the drag. Some of the girls tried to slow it down a bit, but I took up the pace whenever that happened. I basically led for all but about 20m of the last 6 or 7km (unfortunatley the most critical 20m). I had thought about trying to break with half a lap to go, but felt better of it given all the work I had done, but I was happy to just control the pace from the front, gradually upping it during the last km, and then pushing hard with 500m to go. Then I head a clatter from behind - I presumed someone had fallen (and t was subsequenly confirmed that one of the girls had a nasty fall after her front wheel was clipped)

I pushed hard, but had provided the ideal lead out for Mel Spath who came past me with another girl in the final few metres to take the win. Still, I managed 3rd, which is my best ever road race result, so I'm not complaining:D

Strava record here

C3PO

Intended to sign up for the Over 50s but with only 3 guys entered I went for the A4 option instead! The abuse on the club forum if I'd "entered the Ladies race" would have been unbearable! Very well run race and the hot showers and the tea and sambos were great! Shame the weather didn't "play ball" too!

P.S. well done Beasty - I'd like to have introduced myself!

Beasty

Full results and a few pictures here

manwithaplan

I did the A4 race. I didn't rate my chances in a sprint so I had a few unsuccessful goes at getting away on the drags. In the end, I surprised myself by getting 5th.

killalanerr

A4 race for me well run event thanks to club,the plan was to push it on up the drag to try and take the sting out of the sprinters legs which is how it went more of less we had a few digs of the front but typical A4 race nothing was geting very far,with about 3km to go i was feeling good i started to think about the finish i moved to the inside to stay out of the wind and their it was the only pothole on the circuit i seen it late so my attempt to bunny was to no avail my back wheel went flat within 200 metres race over for me,im very disappointed but thats the sort of week i have been having
well done all the boardies that got up some very aggressive rideing on show

ryan_sherlock

Beasty wrote: »

I pushed hard, but had provided the ideal lead out for Mel Spath who came past me with another girl in the final few metres to take the win. Still, I managed 3rd, which is my best ever road race result, so I'm not complaining:D

Don't worry - Mel beats me in sprints too!

RobFowl

Respect to the Beast



Well done

mc2000

Good man Beasty, great result, you're on your way to being a leg-end.

I shall file the necessary paperwork with the Vets Green Group uber-komittee and ensure that you're up in scratch for the first vets race in 4 weeks time :pac:

feck sake lads

so point out the beast in that photo thanks.;)

Beasty

feck sake lads wrote: »

so point out the beast in that photo thanks.;)

The Beast is the bike with the Beasty on top;)

feck sake lads

so is that you in first place.
well done. btw i see one of our lads got 6th place in the cat 4 great result for him in his first race.
paddy from drogheda wheelers.;)

manwithaplan

feck sake lads wrote: »

so is that you in first place.
well done. btw i see one of our lads got 6th place in the cat 4 great result for him in his first race.
paddy from drogheda wheelers.;)

I was sure he beat me to the line. There must have been less that a tyre's width in it. He let a big female tennis player-like grunt in trying to get up which alerted me to his presence.

Beasty

I was hoping we could start a debate over combined ladies and "less able mens" races, so have moved the relevant posts to a separate thread