IRC/Lucan/Orwell/UCD/Tiernans club league - 19/04/12

fat bloke

Woof.

What a night. All the way out to Batterstown for 1 lap of the green sheds, but what a lap. Two separate races like last week. This time semi limit caught limit fairly sharpish, and then got hit by a deluge and then horrible stingy blinding hailstones. We'd had a good gang of 15 -20 or so working in and upping and overing up until then and then it all went to pot. The pace dropped and the bunch just got bunchier and bunchier and there seemed to be a lot of traffic coming against us which, with all the standing water made it a bit hairy. I found myself stuck at the back for ages and couldn't make my way up at all. Couldn't go up the outside safely, tried the inside a couple of times and got hemmed in and shuffled to the back again. Same craic on the main road. Big fat slug of a group with the whole road taken up and kamikaze's over the white line with cars up and cars down:rolleyes:. Eventually someone found the big ring at the front and the bunch stretched out and I made my way towards the front and got myself into what I thought was a prime 2nd position, but I never realised how close the garage finish line was, and I don't think anyone was sure cos when the sprint finish came there wasn't much heat in it at all. I didn't even realise it was a spring until too late. If someone had jumped off the front good and hard anytime after the last roundabout they'd have had the race handy enough.

Anyway, everyone home safe in the end which is a result in conditions like that. It was far far, far safer towards the end with a reasonable pace going too, on a one lapper there shouldn't be any need for dawdling imo. Swings and roundabouts innit. Last week we didn't work and we didn't catch limit, this week we worked well and caught limit way too soon!

Was feeling sorry for Astramonti on his lovely white bike. Kept meaning to say hello but it was hard with a mouthful of hailstones:pac:

buffalo

I was marshalling, and fuppin' freezin' and saturated by the end. Cheers to capnsantini for the lift home. How many of you hardy souls braved the elements to race? Any results for boardsies?

kenmc

Mr Grieves got second in SL I believe.
Was miserable. I've been drier after a bloody swim. Unusual finish, no-one really knew where it was, so a couple of people tried to get away but failed. I crossed around 9th or 10th in SS/S, thought I may have gotten 8th but didn't. Scratch apparently caught us with 100m to go, so didn't get up.

Couldn't see for several km with the hail and spray, brakes were pretty useless when cornering. We (SS) worked well together initially, then a couple of lads IRC and Lucan I think got away off the front in the hail after the roundabouts, but we reeled them back in before the main road. Again on the main road a couple of lads tried to get away, but didn't succeed. Was pretty tough race, besides the weather, just looking through my garmin for the race, avg 39km/h. Any time i looked down at my heartrate it seemed to be at 85%!

buffalo

Sounds like Mr Grieves'll be in Scratch before long!

Mods, can you merge with http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056612241 please?

AstraMonti

Horrible horrible horrible.

Congratulations to Mr Grieves, he's fecking flying. We were working great until we caught limit, then on the bridge with the hailstone I got so frozen that I couldn't do anything, I was shivering and eventually i dropped off as my whole body cramped from the cold. I should have wore my jacket. Nevertheless, it can only get better.

I did a couple of stupid things btw, was drinking water, thinking something entirely else and swerve on the right like a proper muppet, apologies to the tiernan rider.

fat bloke

Sorry guys, double post. Can we merge please mods?

kenmc

fat bloke wrote: »

but I never realised how close the garage finish line was, and I don't think anyone was sure cos when the sprint finish came there wasn't much heat in it at all.

See that wasn't the garage, that's why it seemed so close. Just as well though, cos as I rolled back into batterstown, just before the garage, there was a HUGE pothole right in the middle of the left lane. Wouldn't have fancied finishing there! But yeah, I thought we still had a couple of km to go, was only when we could see a marshall with a flag we knew we were almost there.

chakattack

fat bloke wrote: »

Edit.....

The pace dropped and the bunch just got bunchier and bunchier and there seemed to be a lot of traffic coming against us

I found myself stuck at the back for ages and couldn't make my way up at all. Couldn't go up the outside safely, tried the inside a couple of times and got hemmed in and shuffled to the back again. Same craic on the main road. Big fat slug of a group with the whole road taken up and kamikaze's over the white line with cars up and cars down:rolleyes:. Eventually someone found the big ring at the front and the bunch stretched out

A4 racing on a Thursday night? :cool:

Idleater

Ugh! I think my feet are just about warmed up...
Was good training lugging the couple of kg rain water around though.

Idleater

AstraMonti wrote: »

Horrible horrible horrible.

Was your tyre okay in the end? Mine felt sort of sluggish in the deluge, but I put that down to grip. I've open corsas which I believe have the same tread pattern as your veloflex?

Beasty

Threads merged

Beasty

MadHatter

Awful bloody night for it. Got a dose of the shivers when I arrived home, took 15mins under a hot shower before I got any feeling back in my feet. Funny thing is I hadn't planned to race tonight but I spent the whole day at work looking out the window at clear blue skies thinking it'd be a lovely evening for a bike ride!

Managed to take 5th in the sprint for limit/semi-limit race so worth the suffering in the end. Pretty happy with that result for two reasons - firstly I've never contested a sprint before (or even practiced in training) so didn't really know what I was doing, secondly the wheel I'd been following in the run up to the sprint decided he wasn't going to bother so I ended up leading the bunch at exactly the wrong time and had to launch my sprint from the front. Went too early in the end but you live and learn.

Fair play to everyone who turned up to race and to the marshalls as it can't have been fun for them either. Hopefully that's the worst weather we'll see this year.

AstraMonti

Idleater wrote: »

Was your tyre okay in the end? Mine felt sort of sluggish in the deluge, but I put that down to grip. I've open corsas which I believe have the same tread pattern as your veloflex?

Yeah it was fine.. I think at that point I was only looking for excuses to get my ass back in the car, finished it though. It did felt sluggish on the bridge though, no idea why, hell.. I was feeling worse lol.

joker77

kenmc wrote: »

We (SS) worked well together initially, then a couple of lads IRC and Lucan I think got away off the front in the hail after the roundabouts, but we reeled them back in before the main road.

Was part of that little break. Was behind a Lucan guy through the roundabouts where the usual finish is, he was moving up quite quick so I reckoned he was going for it, just hung behind him and belted away with a UCD guy and 2 IRC guys. Couldn't do a whole lot of work, was just clinging on in parts, did a couple of turns but nothing of note. After we got caught went attacking again when they started, was just really planning to use the race as training and bust myself. That I did - ended up getting the worst stitch of my life, stopped, was doubled over for a few minutes. Freezing, unpleasant cycle back to Batterstown. Not a great night overall.

oflahero

Hideous. Got in the car, went straight to Roly's and had a steak.

CramCycle

BB was loose, new rear cassette had some play. None of this became apparent till I arrived. After 20 minutes of mucking around I realised nothing was going to give me a hope of racing so i volunteered as a spare marshall.

Waited in the rain for an hour with company from an Usher rider, decided to go back a little to see was anyone on their way, realised we were waiting somewhere where the race wasn't

Apparently CramCycles experiences racing are not that different to his experiences on Audax events. Arrived back in time to see the last two racers packing up.

Lumen

oflahero wrote: »

Hideous. Got in the car, went straight to Roly's and had a steak.

Dude, I was so wet that Guilbaud wouldn't let me in!

lalorm

That was a tough night. Great to see SL starting the up and overs off the line. We did well to catch them so quick. Started to get a stitch just as we got them and was fighting it off the rest of the race. Between the energy drink and the hailstones, it tasted more like a slush puppy!!!! I can't perform in cold weather. I noticed as we got onto the many roundabouts that for some reason I couldn't get the speed up in the legs spinning out of the corners. At first I thought it was just that I was tired, but then I realised what it was. All the water has ran down the legs and into my nice waterproof boots. Problem with that was that once the water gets in, it can't go anywhere! So they were getting heavier. Over double their dry weight! On the run in at the end, I made my way up to the front 3 times. Each time I thought that the finish would be just around the corner but it wasn't. When the finish did come around the corner, I was too far back for the gallop so just cruised home in the group. Next season, I vote we move the first few races to Spain!

kenmc

Lumen wrote: »

Dude, I was so wet that Guilbaud wouldn't let me in!

Pretty sure they do take out....

Rofo

The pace was a bit slower than usual in Limit, into a slight headwind for the first 10km up to the circuit. There were a few up and overs but when they broke down, the group got kind of clogged up and it wasn't easy to move up. We were caught early on by SL on the drag after the first roundabout and they upped the pace immediately. We were also caught by the blackest cloud of hail which hammered down on everybody for the next ten minutes. It was feckin freezing and I could barely use the brakes & shifters. Fair play to everyone for keeping it safe through the corners.

It was my second time racing green sheds – the early season race was 3 laps, but I somehow remembered it being a lot shorter and kept trying to follow breaks thinking we were nearly home. I need to learn how to make better use of my Garmin. No-one was sure exactly where the finish was going to be and after a few more attempted breaks the group came back together for the last couple of kms, resulting in a big bunch sprint when the flag came into view.

Thanks to the organisers and marshals for a smooth and safe race in crappy conditions – I hope they did a better job than me of picking the right kit for the weather :rolleyes:

AstraMonti

Rofo wrote: »

I hope they did a better job than me of picking the right kit for the weather :rolleyes:

I don't think you can prepare for a weather like that, unless you go out with a drysuit.

joker77

Chapeau to Mr. Grieves again. 1st in 1st week (in Limit), 2nd in 2nd week (in Semi-Limit), what's next - 3rd next week, in Semi-Scratch?

Mr. Grieves

I am gonna go for Semi-Scratch next week I think, (after your sandbagger comment ), we'll see how that goes...

Good race for me. Was pretty scary merging with Limit in the hail. Lucky it was on a good wide stretch of road. The SL group worked really well together to catch Limit so early.

I'd no idea where the finish was, like everybody else I think. The guy who came first timed his sprint perfectly - he really flew up that hill!

joker77

Mr. Grieves wrote: »

I am gonna go for Semi-Scratch next week I think, (after your sandbagger comment ), we'll see how that goes...

I reckon you'll bypass SS fairly handy as well. It's disgusting.

fat and slow

I'm interested to see if there are more limit riders interested in doing work at the front? Being caught early on, the bunch sprint and wet conditions were annoying last thurs.
For the 29k brittas course with a 4min headstart at 36kmph pace the sl group would have to average 39.2 kmph to catch us. Doing 38kmph they have to average 41.6 to catch us and doing 40 we're uncatchable (they'd have to average 44 kmph).
For those interseted we could have a quick shop meeting at the start line as soon as the scracth group depart. From the ucd limit rider.

fat bloke

fat and slow wrote: »

I'm interested to see if there are more limit riders interested in doing work at the front? Being caught early on, the bunch sprint and wet conditions were annoying last thurs.
For the 29k brittas course with a 4min headstart at 36kmph pace the sl group would have to average 39.2 kmph to catch us. Doing 38kmph they have to average 41.6 to catch us and doing 40 we're uncatchable (they'd have to average 44 kmph).
For those interseted we could have a quick shop meeting at the start line as soon as the scracth group depart. From the ucd limit rider.

Next race is a DMS so basically everyone will pootle around admiring the scenery and there'll be 75 Mark Cavendish's in last 100 metres.

Arthurdaly

Is the DMS four separate races?

buffalo

Arthurdaly wrote: »

Is the DMS four separate races?

Yes. Divided Mass Start - every category is in their own race, no handicaps. So if you're limit, you just have to beat the other limit riders, semi-limit won't be chasing you.

Diarmuid

fat bloke wrote: »

Next race is a DMS so basically everyone will pootle around admiring the scenery and there'll be 75 Mark Cavendish's in last 100 metres.

If you don't fancy that, I'd recommend signing on with the scratch group, the attacks start 100m into the race.

lalorm

Hi All,
I'm down to marshal this Thursday night in Britas, anyone fancy swapping?

Regards
Mike.

CramCycle

lalorm wrote: »

Hi All,
I'm down to marshal this Thursday night in Britas, anyone fancy swapping?

Regards
Mike.

I will if you can do the 31st of May for me at black Bull?

lalorm

CramCycle wrote: »

I will if you can do the 31st of May for me at black Bull?

Great. That'll be fine. So how do we do this? Do we need to email someone?

CramCycle

lalorm wrote: »

Great. That'll be fine. So how do we do this? Do we need to email someone?

PM me your name and I'll sort it out if thats OK.