Rás cycling race is coming to town

Toblerone1978

Hi all

The Rás cycling race is Ireland's premium cycling race. The first stage (day) is coming to Kilkenny this Sunday and I'm looking for volunteers to help us marshall it on the day. The marshals will be required from 2pm to 6pm, although I'd be very suprised if it doesn't finish well b4 6pm. The marshals will be placed somewhere between McDonagh Junction and the finish line at the Blue Bar on St Patrick's Street, which is where the real action will be happening - expect the cyclists to be doing 50kph+ once they hit the Dublin Rd!!

No cycling experience required!! If you’re interested, will you send me a PM and I’ll reply with the details.

Oh yeah, Captain Havoc said he will ban anyone from the forum who doesn’t sign-up*.


Regards
Toblerone1978


* Not true.

Captain Havoc

For anyone who's curious, the finish should be at 16h15 - 16h20 but this could vary depending on conditions or exceptional circumstances, I really couldn't see them getting here before 16h00 or after 16h45 as weather should be fine. Usually there's free t-shirts and race caps and it would be interesting even for anyone who has no interest in cycling. The race is a mix of professional riders most of which would be coming from abroad and Irish county riders, so the field can be divided a little bit. The classification is 2.2, the first 2 means it's a multi-day event (8 in total) and the second 2 is it's rank or division, which I'll explain as best I can. The race forms part of the UCI (cycling's FIA) Europe Tour (cycling's GP2 or F2). Each race on the tour has points on offer in the overall rankings but the Rás wouldn't have as many points as a 2.1 event.

The most notable winner of the Rás in recent years is 2007 winner Tony Martin who is the current world time-trial champion, he had his best year as a professional last year winning Paris - Nice and a stage in each the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España. Another big name to have won the Rás is 1979 winner Stephen Roche who went on to win the 1987 Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Word Championship, making him only the second person to do so.

This year's line-up includes last year's champion and Lithuanian time-trial champion Gediminis Bagdonas who rides for An Post Seán Kelly, current U-23 Irish road cycling champion Sam Bennett, also of An Post Seán Kelly, 3 times Irish road race champion and six times national time-trail champion David McCann will be joined by track specialist Martyn Irvine for RTS Racing. Irish cyclist Felix English, defeater of Scottish legend and multiple world and Olympic medal winner Sir Chris Hoy, lines out for Rapha Condor. Cycling forum regular Ryan Sherlock is racing for Carrick Iverk Produce, I believe there maybe one or two other boardsies racing it.

Alberto Contador

They're only about an hour now from the Parade, hope I see you guys down there.

Dozen Wicked Words

My four year old was delighted with it all, thought it was fantastic, he thought the motorbikes were going to win though!

PhilipMarlowe

Was behind a group of riders (and the broom wagon) on the road from Ballyragget yesterday for quite a while and they were tipping along ~ 50kph in general... impressive for what were the guys at the tail