Ras Donegal

The Flying Vet

What's going on up in Donegal??? Seems to be a crash fest and not an A4 in sight!

happyhappy

The Flying Vet wrote: »

What's going on up in Donegal??? Seems to be a crash fest and not an A4 in sight!

153 started and 101 remain for tomorrow apparently. That's an awful lot of DNFs.

Taxuser1

Yip crashes galore. From the 5 crashes I've seen, some real basic errors led to them and they happened right where the speed was highest. Tight roads, cars and fast conditions are another factor. Seen some spectacular crashes over two days. Touch wood everyone arrives home safe tomorrow.

All that being said, standard of racing has been really high. Lot of the juniors on top of their game but all round it's competitive.

ednwireland

Don't know just seem to be crashes on wider roads as well yesterday. Let's hope they all stay safe today. going out to start putting up signs.

Plastik

Complete and utter carnage. 153 starters and 80 finishers. Glorious sunshine, no rain, no wind - perfect conditions.

I was wiped out almost at the head of the bunch 5km into Stage 3 at 50kph when a junior from - I won't mention which junior team he was on - did a massive switch of lines across my front wheel without so much as glancing over his shoulder. DNF on the stage, a couple of visits to the ambulance and a lot of missing skin.

ednwireland

Plastik wrote: »

I was wiped out almost at the head of the bunch 5km into Stage 3 at 50kph when a junior from - I won't mention which junior team he was on - did a massive switch of lines across my front wheel without so much as glancing over his shoulder. DNF on the stage, a couple of visits to the ambulance and a lot of missing skin.

ouch ! sorry to hear that when your marshaling signing the course its always in your mind that you could have done something better (of course you always can) but you cant legislate for that.

heard someone saying after the presentations there was very little calling of obstacles from the front

Fr D Maugire

Plastik wrote: »

Complete and utter carnage. 153 starters and 80 finishers. Glorious sunshine, no rain, no wind - perfect conditions.

I was wiped out almost at the head of the bunch 5km into Stage 3 at 50kph when a junior from - I won't mention which junior team he was on - did a massive switch of lines across my front wheel without so much as glancing over his shoulder. DNF on the stage, a couple of visits to the ambulance and a lot of missing skin.

Think that was the same crash that took out one of our guys as well. Same description as to what happened and same place. Think quite a few went down in that one as well, another rider that we know was also involved and retired later because of their injuries.

The Ging and I

ednwireland wrote: »

ouch ! sorry to hear that when your marshaling signing the course its always in your mind that you could have done something better (of course you always can) but you cant legislate for that.

heard someone saying after the presentations there was very little calling of obstacles from the front

When I raced, a large part of winter cycling was given to group riding. We would deliberately rub wheels to learn how to react- mounting parallel kerbs to avoid what ever and so on. Up and over speed - echelon riding - dare I mention calling holes ? If you punctured you put your arm in the air and moved safely across the road and pulled in. Standard stuff.
Judging by the standard I see on sportiefs etc there is little if any group training.
Why group skills are not practiced any more I have no idea.
I wonder will CI react to this race outcome ?

Taxuser1

Very different race on Stage 4 with only 84 riders and a KOM in first 5kms. Much safer.

8kmph avg up Glengesh is a new low ��

talkabout

ednwireland wrote: »

ouch ! sorry to hear that when your marshaling signing the course its always in your mind that you could have done something better (of course you always can) but you cant legislate for that.

heard someone saying after the presentations there was very little calling of obstacles from the front

Ed, i seen you on Saturday so this is not personal but the lack of marshals was shocking. I was standing at the Ardara Junction turning left for Glenties and not a marshal in sight. It was an accident waiting to happen. The level of marshaling really needs to be looked at. Why not ask the local clubs to help out?

Taxuser1

Didn't think marshalling was an issue. The riders mostly at fault. That said, not a cop to be seen either?

Jack Joll

Was in the crash Saturday evening, this was post-escaping a crash only 5mins prior where junior lad hit wing mirror of a car.
Situation was I was coming along the white right hand side, behind 3 or 4 riders on a wide regional road, dashed white line no cars coming oncoming when a junior (again who'll remain nameless) decided to try and attack from centre of road over to right hand gutter, presumingly hoping no one would follow him. He switched straight across the rider coming along his right hand side, never even looked. All went down, I was 3-4 back and couldnt avoid it, about half the bunch went down. Following quick re-mount I got back on the chase but had to abandon, fractured collar bone for my troubles! And frame is destroyed! only seen a large crack in the downtube this morning.
In my opinion alot was down to arrogant juniors who thin they can go where they want blinkers on, without repercussions. I didnt witness one crash that weekend caused by senior riders!
As regards marshalling, when we chased back on we continued the lap and came across another crash on the descent into Clooney. There where no marshals up the road warning of this dangrous descent, in fact another crash was nearly caused by us chasing back on and the cars stopped on this bend.
Not one for complaining but just to give my side of the story, I really enjoyed my time in the race and will be back. But something needs to be done, either concentrate coaching efforts on juniors riding in large bunches or capping the race at 80-100. As I certainly cant afford shelling out for a new frame, and I wonder what my Cycling Ireland licence fee is for surly this should help towards damaged bike expenses!

koutoubia

Did someone either offically or unoffically have a 'word' with this junior to let him know the consequence if his actions?

Plastik

Jack Joll wrote: »

Was in the crash Saturday evening, this was post-escaping a crash only 5mins prior where junior lad hit wing mirror of a car.
Situation was I was coming along the white right hand side, behind 3 or 4 riders on a wide regional road, dashed white line no cars coming oncoming when a junior (again who'll remain nameless) decided to try and attack from centre of road over to right hand gutter, presumingly hoping no one would follow him. He switched straight across the rider coming along his right hand side, never even looked. All went down, I was 3-4 back and couldnt avoid it, about half the bunch went down. Following quick re-mount I got back on the chase but had to abandon, fractured collar bone for my troubles! And frame is destroyed! only seen a large crack in the downtube this morning.
In my opinion alot was down to arrogant juniors who thin they can go where they want blinkers on, without repercussions. I didnt witness one crash that weekend caused by senior riders!
As regards marshalling, when we chased back on we continued the lap and came across another crash on the descent into Clooney. There where no marshals up the road warning of this dangrous descent, in fact another crash was nearly caused by us chasing back on and the cars stopped on this bend.
Not one for complaining but just to give my side of the story, I really enjoyed my time in the race and will be back. But something needs to be done, either concentrate coaching efforts on juniors riding in large bunches or capping the race at 80-100. As I certainly cant afford shelling out for a new frame, and I wonder what my Cycling Ireland licence fee is for surly this should help towards damaged bike expenses!

I was that first man down, sorry to hear about your collarbone and bike.

The large crash on stage 1, which I didn't realise had happened until after the stage, was caused by a compression on a bridge apparently. The guy that clipped the car mirror at the start of stage 3 just kept on going as if nothing had happened - I'm not sure whether someone came down in that, it sounded like it did? The large crash 5km in was as you outlined above. The crash on the sweeping bend - which was bad and I wish those guys health and recovery as soon as possible - was simply rider error, they overcooked the bend. And there was a crash on the descent after the second KOM on stage 4 - which was again the fault of another junior who actually grabbed my team mates saddle, who instinctively moved away, and the junior came across the wheel of the guy behind/beside him. There was even a junior crashed in a two man bridging across to the break effort on stage 1 :rolleyes:

Completely bananas stuff.

koutoubia wrote: »

Did someone either offically or unoffically have a 'word' with this junior to let him know the consequence if his actions?

I know what team he was on, but I don't know which rider he was. I was tempted to seek out their team car later that evening but in the end, didn't. For better or worse I thought I would be wasting my time given I didn't know which rider it was.

@ed Can I ask why the old mountain TT wasn't used this year? In terms of feedback I thought everything ran smoothly. I personally didn't pick up on any marshalling issues. I would say that when the TT was moved to the new route towards Killybegs and then shortened, it changed the dynamic of the Saturday racing completely. You had 80 riders within 47 seconds of the Yellow jersey starting stage 3 and there were 30 seconds of time bonuses available on the stage. I thought that maybe made that stage what it turned out to be. Ye would have been better served starting the TT from the roadworks up to the top of the hill so that GC would have been more apart - or should have cancelled the time bonuses on Stage 3.

Taxuser1

The lad who crashed on a tight s bend broke his hip. Too fast and he was out of control. Looked awful!

But we were warned on next lap to take it easy down there by Oliver McKenna in the announcers following car.

Look, it's bike racing and **** happens. It was a really quick 3 days and accidents look worse at speed.

Anyone who completed will come out of the race with savage form!

ednwireland

Plastik wrote: »

@ed Can I ask why the old mountain TT wasn't used this year? In terms of feedback I thought everything ran smoothly. I personally didn't pick up on any marshalling issues. I would say that when the TT was moved to the new route towards Killybegs and then shortened, it changed the dynamic of the Saturday racing completely. You had 80 riders within 47 seconds of the Yellow jersey starting stage 3 and there were 30 seconds of time bonuses available on the stage. I thought that maybe made that stage what it turned out to be. Ye would have been better served starting the TT from the roadworks up to the top of the hill so that GC would have been more apart - or should have cancelled the time bonuses on Stage 3.

the regular Friday route had to be changed because of a bridge been replaced (which actually started the week of our own sportive)

the regular time trial was moved to the first climb on sunday because of resurfacing works but due to a funeral the tt was moved to the nick and then there were road works put on that at the last minute hence it been shortened.

stage 3 had to be changed due to huge roadworks replacing the road near the gweebarra bridge.

the bridge works on stage one caused the rerouting on sunday as well.
didn't make life easy for the race organisers, marshalls and signers beleive me .

thank god the glengesh roadworks were such we didnt have to change that !

hard to know how the race is going to be affected when you make so many changes.

im not directly involved in the race planning but as i cycle the roads regularly and let them know if anything changes on the roads. also do route signing, marshalling and anything else makes for long days.