Shay Elliott New A3 Race

velogirl

Just to let everyone know that Bray Wheelers Cycling Club have just got confirmation that Cycling Ireland have granted permission for us to include an A3 race as part of the Shay Elliott race programme on Saturday April 26th. As this will be the only race in Southern Ireland on that date we are hoping for a big turnout.

The new race the SHA3 will be on a shorter version of the Shay Elliott Course taking in the iconic Shay Elliott/Glenmalure climb. We feel this is a natural progression for the race and will bring the Elliott experience to a wider group of racers.

So hopefully everyone will start training and plan to include it in your race list for 2014.......:)

Plastik

This will be a great addition to the calendar. With the article on StickyBottle today about CyclingIreland considering the introduction of a Classic League it should see numbers for the main race boosted and some excellent racing on the roads of Wicklow.

It will be a good hard 90km for the A3/Junior field and there's nothing easy about racing up the side of the Elliott out of Glenmalure. Anyone that does well in this will certainly have earned their points towards an upgrade.

Chapeau to Bray Wheelers for taking the decision to run another race to the list of stuff that they do each year. It's a thankless task getting folk to turn out and marshal - especially on difficult routes to man like the Elliott and SHA3. It's a pity that there's not more clubs out there that have an interest in pushing the competitive side of the sport on - even stuff like TT's and Hill Climbs would be something that small clubs should be able to organise.

colm_gti

I picked the wrong season to leave Ireland!

killalanerr

good weekend to come back and see the ma and dish out a bit of pain when your here col

lennymc

I picked the wrong season to stay in Ireland. Good god it sounds horrific! Cant wait.

smurphy29

That is outstanding / awful news. I can't wait / am full of dread.

Plastik

lennymc wrote: »

I picked the wrong season to stay in Ireland. Good god it sounds horrific! Cant wait.

It'll be no problem to you Lenny. Just sit in and keep your powder dry to the top of the Elliott, and it's all downhill after that. Nearly.

lennymc

Plastik wrote: »

It'll be no problem to you Lenny. Just sit in and keep your powder dry to the top of the Elliott, and it's all downhill after that. Nearly.

thanks for the advice plastik! You make it sound so easy

Morrisseeee

Which Juniors will finish 1/2/3 ? :pac:

Aodho

Great addition to the calendar, fair play to Bray Wheelers on this! A super proactive club, & unlike a lot of new clubs popping up, who seem to concentrate on only leisure events, they still serve the backbone of the sport first & foremost (i.e racing).

I imagine that the performance juniors will rip this race & the rest of the A3 peloton a "new one" so to to speak & it will be a major early season target for them. On a separate but not unrelated issue, will points be awarded separately for A3s this year? Or will we have to same bottleneck issue of last year where performance juniors gobbled up most of the points in races leading to fewer natural progressions up the rank by A3s..

Pawlie

Aodho wrote: »

I imagine that the performance juniors will rip this race & the rest of the A3 peloton a "new one" so to to speak & it will be a major early season target for them. On a separate but not unrelated issue, will points be awarded separately for A3s this year? Or will we have to same bottleneck issue of last year where performance juniors gobbled up most of the points in races leading to fewer natural progressions up the rank by A3s..

This is just my opinion and is not directed at you lad
They where a good few a3 riders that got upgraded during the year while racing with the juniors,I cannot understand why people moan about them winning as if lads cant ride against them and pick up points what makes them strong enough to go with the 1's and 2's,they have been a few instances where a3 lads got points to go up and got ate alive more so than when riding a3 with the juniors,if lads wanna get up a2 they need to be able ride and be competitive with the juniors cause if yea cant yea will be worse up a2,
if lads are worried about not been able to get points they should go upgrade themselves,that will ease their worry a tad until the race with the 1's and 2's

lennymc

Cant believe I'm saying this, but well said Pawlie.
Nothing better than having yer hole opened to really make you push yourself. (IMHO)

Aodho, there will be no seperate points for A3/Juniors this year. It was mentioned (iirc) at the AGM but not put forward or passed as a motion.

ericzeking

Is the rule about juniors having to ride A3 except in certain circumstances being relaxed this year? I heard that the better ones will be allowed ride A1/A2 races whenever they want this season?

Not that I'm afraid of them!!!!! :pac:

smurphy29

ericzeking wrote: »

Is the rule about juniors having to ride A3 except in certain circumstances being relaxed this year? I heard that the better ones will be allowed ride A1/A2 races whenever they want this season?

Not that I'm afraid of them!!!!! :pac:

Not that I'm aware of; pretty certain they'll be riding in A3.

I've no problem admitting I'm terrified of them.

Aodho

Pawlie wrote: »

This is just my opinion and is not directed at you lad
They where a good few a3 riders that got upgraded during the year while racing with the juniors,I cannot understand why people moan about them winning as if lads cant ride against them and pick up points what makes them strong enough to go with the 1's and 2's,they have been a few instances where a3 lads got points to go up and got ate alive more so than when riding a3 with the juniors,if lads wanna get up a2 they need to be able ride and be competitive with the juniors cause if yea cant yea will be worse up a2,
if lads are worried about not been able to get points they should go upgrade themselves,that will ease their worry a tad until the race with the 1's and 2's

Oh I'm not moaning about racing with them Pawlie, in fact I think it's really brought the level of A3 along since they've been racing exclusively in that cat. But I think A3s should get points separate to the juniors.. otherwise it creates a bottleneck in the grading/progression system & then some tinkering will have to be done down the line (like last year's A4 upgrade amnesty which was indicative of the system not working correctly).

Pawlie

Aodho wrote: »

Oh I'm not moaning about racing with them Pawlie, in fact I think it's really brought the level of A3 along since they've been racing exclusively in that cat. But I think A3s should get points separate to the juniors.. otherwise it creates a bottleneck in the grading/progression system & then some tinkering will have to be done down the line (like last year's A4 upgrade amnesty which was indicative of the system not working correctly).

Sorry bud I didnt mean you moaning just lads in general have been on other threads ,but I disagree with yea........
So say we have 4 juniors up the road and not been caught,so they will get 1st set of points ie 8,7,6,5.......then we will have lads in bunch not bothering to race or try get across cause all they are thinking is about been 1st a3 over line to get 8 points,silly if you ask me cause if thats they way they will ride they will get a right hammering up with 1's and 2's,like I said they have been good few lads get up while racing with the juniors and if yea cant race against them and throw the dummy out lads have no place up the top tier,

slow

Junior international squad riders can be upgraded to ride A1/A2 races on a race by race basis by the National Coach (Neill Delahaye) if they are preparing for international competition as long as the race distance isn't above 120km. That's the eight riders who were named for the Ballyhoura weekend a fortnight ago. As there aren't any early season junior international races and some of them are doing the Leaving Cert, I'd say we'll be seeing them at A3 races (at the start anyway :-)

Morrisseeee

Pawlie wrote: »

...if yea cant race against them and throw the dummy out lads have no place up the top tier,

That's a fair point but.............how many points are they hogging/accumulating ?
According to CI rider rankings the top 15 Juniors have accumulated 1492 points.
/now I'm guessing some of those points are not A3, ie. some were won in A2/A1, or J T of I, and I'm not sure are they a running total or just last year's points.

joe50

if a Junior is capable of getting enough points in the A3 grade then surely they could move on to racing with A2/A1

the stronger Juniors will then benefit from the better racing up the grades and it's pretty much a level playing field for everyone looking for points..

also, some of the less strong Juniors get the benefit of not having to race in the shadow of the stronger ones for a bit..

Plastik

This has been done quite a few times on here already, and discussed elsewhere. Lets not clutter up a thread about the SHA3 with it. The Juniors are racing with the A3 again by default this year and there's nothing will be done about that. Some may get an exception at certain times during the year, but if the info above re: 120km being a max, then the Elliott Memorial would be too long at 140km even for that.

Back on track, hopefully there will be a good turnout of A3's and Juniors for this. It's on the week after all the Easter stage racing and there's a lot of guys will be hoping to carry over decent form into this. The same can be said for the Memorial with a lot of the top guys having knocked lumps out of each other at Rás Mumhan. There might be a field of A1/A2 there that may not have considered the race before but might not look to have a go.

Certainly will be a good route for the A3 field, something that a lot of people were crying out for over the last year. The Laragh Classic delivered something similar and got a super field in all races. Loads of places for a break to go away a long way before the bottom of the climb.