Ring of Kerry 2013

devotional1993

merc230ce wrote: »

Didn't see any Roses. I've only ever seen one (in Fairview, D3). Saw a fair few Canyons though. There was plenty of eye candy to be lusting after!

Only rose I saw was the kerry rose handing out sweets to a few hornball cyclists.
What an event. Nothing ive ever done competes with it. A really special atmosphere and a welcome escape from all the doom and gloom at the moment.

lecker Hendl

The Kerry people were great. Was nice to see them out at 6 in the morning cheering us on. The finish line was just as good too. All in all, a great day out. I'll have the bike ready for next year.

roadie_2013

Fair play to those involved in any way. It was a great day on the bike.

The weather obviously had a big impact on the day but I think it would have been a great success no matter the conditions.
Food & water stops were all well ran and well stocked up.

Got around in 5 Hrs 50 mins so very happy with that. The climbs were good and the descents even better.

The finish was unbelievable. Great atmosphere welcoming everyone over the line. Felt 10 feet tall.

It was my first time completing the ROK but it will be on the calender every year from now on.

Tech3

It was a great day, I thought the climb up Coomakista was the most enjoyable part and the decent from there.

Found a massive drag before Sneem and Moll's gap was torture for me after the last 150km in my legs. I was in the granny gear most of the way up. Started at 6:10 made it back for 3. First time doing it very enjoyable. No punctures or injuries thankfully but left with 2 sunburnt arms!

Amprodude

Tech3 wrote: »

It was a great day, I thought the climb up Coomakista was the most enjoyable part and the decent from there.

Found a massive drag before Sneem and Moll's gap was torture for me after the last 150km in my legs. I was in the granny gear most of the way up. Started at 6:10 made it back for 3. First time doing it very enjoyable. No punctures or injuries thankfully but left with 2 sunburnt arms!

Loved the decent from Coomakista down. Fantastic. Worst part for me was the drag between Sneem and Kenmare. Had forgotten about it from last year. Delighted i did the ROK this year. I had a serious accident earlier on the year and there had been doubts that i couldnt do it for a good while but my determination to do it didnt hold me back or have second thoughts on not doing it. There were tears in my eyes when I crossed the finish line after achieving something i thought wouldnt be possible this year. All for great charities.

Uberbeamerman

What can I say, the 2013 ROK was the best one yet!!!

Started out about 5km from Killarney on the Killorglin side (around 7ish) and within 5 minutes of being on the road I was being passed by service motorbikes, escort vehicles and of course cyclists….lots and lots of cyclists

The servicing, the marshalling, the volunteering was top class, and my hat goes off to each and every one of you for making it such a marvellous weekend. At the food stations where I thought there would be bottlenecks and long queues and waiting times there was instead seamless efficient service (in C'siveen I arrived with a large group of people but even still I came out with as much food as I could carry in a matter of minutes)

The new venue in the car park was a fantastic idea, and the commercial stands the day before the ring really added to the buzz and the magic of the weekend (although I'd say BlahBlah06 kinda regrets not limiting his offer at the high 5 tent to the first 300 boardsies!!!! Cheers for the free sample BlahBlah!!!)

A big thank you to the sponsors of the event for getting on board so wholeheartedly (climbing Coomakista and Molls with motomarshalls and the Skoda cars a la tour de france is something that I will never forget), the gardai for their assistance in running the event, and of course the public for being so supportive and allowing such an event to take place.

To everyone who participated in any way shape or form at the weekend, thank you for making it so special. To all the people who raised or donated money to the various beneficiaries this year, a big thank you. And finally to the amazing Committee for organising such an awesome event, from the bottom of my heart I wish to thank you all for making it such a fantastic experience

See you all in 2014!
Uberbeamerman

siblers

Amprodude wrote: »

Loved the decent from Coomakista down. Fantastic. Worst part for me was the drag between Sneem and Kenmare. Had forgotten about it from last year. Delighted i did the ROK this year. .

Last year I found Sneem to Kenmare the worst part of the cycle, but this year I found it fairly easy. Templenoe to Kenmare was fairly handy.

As for Sunburn, I never put on any between my knees and cycling shorts, was destroyed. Still fairly red even now

Arequipa

Hi! Really enjoyed the Ring of Kerry!
Started at about 7:20am.
Cahircaveen foodstop was amazing: so many cyclists... Kennare was much quieter!
Think i pumped my tyres up too much: maybe 115-120psi: found the road surface poor for the last 80km...my backside was in bits by the end!

But, no worries; a fab day!!

Dont know if they could accomodate more than 8,500 cyclists though?!

A

Listrydude

merc230ce wrote: »

Didn't see any Roses. I've only ever seen one (in Fairview, D3). Saw a fair few Canyons though. There was plenty of eye candy to be lusting after!

Saw the Rose of Tralee in Cahersiveen if that counts!!!

kerry4sam

Heisenberg. wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Man I was focused on the climb so I was and the last thing I expected was some fella shouting "Boardsie" on their way up! Tis grand Heisenberg, your smile made up for the shock!

michael196

so were these dreaded checks along the route ? for freeloading ?

BailMeOut

michael196 wrote: »

so were these dreaded checks along the route ? for freeloading ?

They checked bike tags outside Killarney. Was well setup and quick. Lady at food stop was checking for yellow wrist bands too.

Kingdom Man

for a first time doing this i must say the best experience ever from weather, organizing, food, public, water stops, everything was perfect. will deffo be the first event in the diary for 2014!!

merc230ce

michael196 wrote: »

so were these dreaded checks along the route ? for freeloading ?

I only saw one, just heading out of Killarney in the morning.

mossym

michael196 wrote: »

so were these dreaded checks along the route ? for freeloading ?

saw quite a lot of pissed off people who had been stopped at the checkpoint outside killarney

BailMeOut

mossym wrote: »

saw quite a lot of pissed off people who had been stopped at the checkpoint outside killarney

pissed off people with or without tags?

mossym

BailMeOut wrote: »

pissed off people with or without tags?

they all seemed to be without tags. anyone with tags wasn't being stopped, slowed down to go through the chutes then carry on

BailMeOut

mossym wrote: »

they all seemed to be without tags. anyone with tags wasn't being stopped, slowed down to go through the chutes then carry on

so they were only pissed off as they were caught! Excellent!

Seems like the 8,500 max cyclists is quite an accurate upper limit too for this event.

ashdale5

Lot's of pics up on the ROK Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151468250856426.1073741834.192392881425&type=1

Ky Abu

Not much mention of the Killarney camera club being involved again this year? I for one didn't see all that many photographers over the course of the day, bar the obvious 5 or 6 photographers at the finish line, from the last few years anyway, it was by the end of the week by the time the camera club had their images up, that's if they were involved again this year.

dogsears

ashdale5 wrote: »

Lot's of pics up on the ROK Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151468250856426.1073741834.192392881425&type=1

Fewer shots of Inda Kinny would have been just fine thanks, but they do show what a super day it was.

ashdale5

Ky Abu wrote: »

Not much mention of the Killarney camera club being involved again this year? I for one didn't see all that many photographers over the course of the day, bar the obvious 5 or 6 photographers at the finish line, from the last few years anyway, it was by the end of the week by the time the camera club had their images up, that's if they were involved again this year.

There was someone taking pics at the top of Molls Gap. He said they would be on the ROK website in three weeks time. Don't know why it would take that long to upload them though.

BailMeOut

ashdale5 wrote: »

Don't know why it would take that long to upload them though.

No good photographer is going to just upload the raw files without cropping, cleaning up and removing bad ones. There are going to be thousands of pictures so this will take a good amount of time and they will also probably water mark them. This is a lot of work!

Lyaiera

BailMeOut wrote: »

No good photographer is going to just upload the raw files without cropping, cleaning up and removing bad ones. There are going to be thousands of pictures so this will take a good amount of time and they will also probably water mark them. This is a lot of work!

Yeah, and definitely worth throwing them a few quid. Unless you have the top of the line professional equipment rated for hundreds of thousands shots you're going to wear out your equipment. You could easily take 5,000 to 10,000 shots on a day like that. The shutters are generally rate to about 150,000 so that's a big portion of your shutter's lifespan taken up with these kind of events.

Masala

I met a photographer on top of Molls. He was actively looking for people to get into a shot.

Also was talking to a photographer at finish line - he said that he took 5,000 shots over the day. He has to tidy them up and load them on the website and told me that we can download same for FREE. So- hats off to them - that is some amount of work and they don't want a penny for them!

ashdale5

BailMeOut wrote: »

No good photographer is going to just upload the raw files without cropping, cleaning up and removing bad ones. There are going to be thousands of pictures so this will take a good amount of time and they will also probably water mark them. This is a lot of work!

Lyaiera wrote: »

Yeah, and definitely worth throwing them a few quid. Unless you have the top of the line professional equipment rated for hundreds of thousands shots you're going to wear out your equipment. You could easily take 5,000 to 10,000 shots on a day like that. The shutters are generally rate to about 150,000 so that's a big portion of your shutter's lifespan taken up with these kind of events.

Fair enough. Looking forward to seeing them.

shaydy

Tremendous day! My first time doing it couldnt have been better, weather, craic and brilliant organisation.

The support bikes and volunteers did an unreal job. I seen a few bad falls, with the worst being on the run down from molls poor lad was in a bad state but thankfully the ambulance was with him.

I struggled the last 15k into sneem as I hit a low but flew into Kenmare and home. The 'party' at molls gap was memorable and the last few km's were great too.

Its certainly not an event for beginners, some tough climbs and I'm not sure about bringing a child in a buggy on a trip like that if only for the simple reason a child usually gets bored siting in a car for a few hours let alone 6-8 hours etc but good luck to them

ballyharpat

https://www.facebook.com/jim.mcsweeney.3/media_set?set=a.576548005731378.1073741876.100001285502599&type=1

There's a boardsie jersey in there........

Amprodude

shaydy wrote: »

Its certainly not an event for beginners, some tough climbs and I'm not sure about bringing a child in a buggy on a trip like that if only for the simple reason a child usually gets bored siting in a car for a few hours let alone 6-8 hours etc but good luck to them

More of a endurance cycle than anything else. Hills arent too bad more drags than anything else.

Frere Jacques

shaydy wrote: »

Its certainly not an event for beginners

Sorry but that's rubbish. It was this event that me and my buddies got into cycling for, all beginners. Follow the training plan and you'll be fine. There are only 2 climbs in the whole day. Keep eating and keep drinking and go at a moderate pace and the ROK is a straight forward spin albeit a long slog. It's more in the head than anything else. Just keep the crank turning and you'll get home alright.