Stephen Roche Atlantic Challenge 2018

Is this event going ahead, the FB page seems to have disappeared.

they had said they were opening registration Sept 1, then postponed it.
I know there was some complaining by local councillors in Ennistynon where it was due to start, and they wanted a cap on the numbers.

jamesd

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/stephen-roche-atlantic-challenge-sportive/

Macy0161

I thought I was being technologically challenged (as usual) when I couldn't find the page to check the date it was on, and on sale. This happened before when 2016 was pulled, and then it seemed to be a brand new page for 2017, which I managed to miss completely until the weekend it was on!

iirc the Ennistymon thing was all sportives, not just aimed at the SRAC.

midlands1

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Is this event going ahead, the FB page seems to have disappeared.

they had said they were opening registration Sept 1, then postponed it.
I know there was some complaining by local councillors in Ennistynon where it was due to start, and they wanted a cap on the numbers.

It's going ahead. Registration is open on evenbrite website. Limited to 1000

dastardly00

Any Boardsies doing this tomorrow?

Two ascents of Corkscrew Hill should be fun :pac:

Weather forecast:
"Saturday will be a cool, bright day with sunny spells and scattered showers. Highest temperatures of 9 or 10 degrees Celsius in light locally moderate westerly winds."

Borderfox

Last year its been run due to objections from two councillors and an Ennistymon cyclist

I have an entry for this if anyone interested,

dastardly00

Borderfox wrote: »

Last year its been run due to objections from two councillors and an Ennistymon cyclist

Yeah, saw that this morning on FB.
Why is a local cyclist objecting?

Borderfox

They are promoting their own sportive

Boscoirl

Glorious here so far this morning!

Going to make a call on the distance at the top of the corkscrew the first time

jamesd

Excellent cycle, well ran and marshalled. Lovely medal after it.

Boscoirl

Ended up only doing the 80km. Talked myself out of the 125 on the decent after the corkscrew. The climb was fine but I got cold on the decent.

Fantastic weather. Enjoyable spin

Some of the surface was in real poor shape. I lost a water bottle, my mini pump and a bottle cage at different stages

The food stop looked grand. I didn’t stop for food. But the queues looked like they were moving alone. I did see on Facebook later that there wasn’t much/ anything for the second time round.

harringtonp

Boscoirl wrote: »

Ended up only doing the 80km. Talked myself out of the 125 on the decent after the corkscrew. The climb was fine but I got cold on the decent.

Fantastic weather. Enjoyable spin

Some of the surface was in real poor shape. I lost a water bottle, my mini pump and a bottle cage at different stages

The food stop looked grand. I didn’t stop for food. But the queues looked like they were moving alone. I did see on Facebook later that there wasn’t much/ anything for the second time round.

Coast road is quite rough surface wise. Ballyvaughan/Lisdoon was resurfaced a couple of years ago and is better than its ever been

Boscoirl

harringtonp wrote: »

Coast road is quite rough surface wise. Ballyvaughan/Lisdoon was resurfaced a couple of years ago and is better than its ever been

The worst if it was probably Doolin to near Ballyvaughan


Also I think I got sun burnt today

trek climber

Did the 125 on Saturday (actually 127), we stopped at Fanore at the 1st stop and queued for about 20 minutes (no hassle as sun was shining), once inside the hall there was tea/coffee and rich tea/bourbon biscuits !!, everything else was gone. Subsequently we stopped in Lisdoonvarna and bought lunch. The second time we went through Fanore the food stop had just closed. At the finish back in the Ennistymon we were presented with a medal at the finish and were told that all the hot food was gone.
Great route, great weather and stunning scenery but the organisation of the event was poor in my opinion.

midlands1

Borderfox wrote: »

They are promoting their own sportive

Any news about a replacement event for next year

midlands1

midlands1 wrote: »

Any news about a replacement event for next year

It's in tralee this year

AxleAddict

Indeed. More specifically, the route starts/finishes in Tralee and travels out around the Dingle peninsula - fingers crossed for some reasonably good weather - some great views all the way up Conor Pass. Lovely part of the country!

brocbrocach

100km route is a bit funny for the "easier" route. Unless there's a strong wind (very possible in March maybe, to be fair!) it'll be almost as hard as the "harder" route as it includes the vast majority of climbing.
Seems to be on all the big roads in the peninsula which won't be very pleasant as there's no way the likes of the N86 will be closed, even "unofficially", for 4 hours.

fat bloke

brocbrocach wrote: »

Seems to be on all the big roads in the peninsula which won't be very pleasant as there's no way the likes of the N86 will be closed, even "unofficially", for 4 hours.

No way around that, it's not like there's a huge choice of roads from Tralee to Dingle. You'd hope that at that time of year the roads wouldn't be mad busy. But at the same time, I wouldn't fancy being on my own - best to stick with a little bunch I'd say.

harringtonp

Lacey Cup starts and ends in Tralee and is 75km. Fine circuit which would also make for a great shorter sportive

brocbrocach

harringtonp wrote: »

Lacey Cup starts and ends in Tralee and is 75km. Fine circuit which would also make for a great shorter sportive

Yep a route back from Dingle through Inch, Keel, CastleMaine before heading north per Lacey Cup route would be nicer and less busy you'd think.

Even taking the spectacular road via Cathair Conraí from Camp down to Inch Road would cut out the rotten coast sector to Tralee which would be repeated otherwise. Lovely narrow mountain roads in there, hard going both up and down and would need a lot of organisation though.

fat bloke

Can't really do a 75km faff around Tralee, charge 45 quid, and justify a grandiose title like "The Stephen Roche Atlantic Challenge"!! - There's no other option than Slea Head and Conor Pass for ruddy cheeked Atlanticism and for miles and access Tralee makes a lot of sense for the start.

monkeysnapper

So anyone on here doing this .... I signed up months ago and to be honest I've heard nobody local talking about it .....?

jamesd

Yes there are 6 of us heading down to it, staying the night before there too.

monkeysnapper

jamesd wrote: »

Yes there are 6 of us heading down to it, staying the night before there too.

Thank God.....thought I was on my own

But seriously I see its sold out , I was told there was about 2000 people doing it ....everyone local I talked to who does a bit of cycling didnt seem to know anything about it and ask me was I sure ....

AxleAddict

Oh - its very real. Possibly the reason why you've not heard about it before is because it used to start & finish in Ennistymon, Co. Clare - but in recent years there seems to have been growing local objection to the perceived inconvenience caused by the increased traffic and reduced parking caused by the influx of several thousand cyclists - whether or not this is the primary reason for the relocation to Tralee this time around I don't know - but regardless, its nice to have a change of scenery and Dingle is lovely. Certainly has been very well supported over the last couple of years that I've done it - although Mr Roche wasn't in attendance last year if I remember correctly. Will be interesting to see how it goes this time around...

Looking forward to it, the last time I cycled over the Conor Pass was in 1986:(

midlands1

you won't be on your own, the local Chain Gang Cycling club are involved in it.

jamesd

I never cycled the Conor pass - is it tough?

AxleAddict

Hard to say without knowing how much cycling/climbing you do. I've only climbed it once myself, North to South in calm conditions. I don't recall it being super steep anywhere, but its a reasonably long climb.

Avg/Max gradient: 6.6% / 10.1%
Distance: 5.2km

https://veloviewer.com/segment/2193228/Conor+Pass+(N-S)

The views all the way up are great though (if its clear). It's definitely more of a challenge than Corkscrew Hill that normally features in the SRAC (a bit steeper in places, but much shorter)

jamesd

AxleAddict wrote: »

Hard to say without knowing how much cycling/climbing you do. I've only climbed it once myself, North to South in calm conditions. I don't recall it being super steep anywhere, but its a reasonably long climb.

Avg/Max gradient: 6.6% / 10.1%
Distance: 5.2km

https://veloviewer.com/segment/2193228/Conor+Pass+(N-S)

The views all the way up are great though (if its clear). It's definitely more of a challenge than Corkscrew Hill that normally features in the SRAC (a bit steeper in places, but much shorter)

I've done the corkscrew with no bother but I have done the Sa Calobra in majorca at 9.4km 688m at 7.1% and found it very hard and had to stop 3 times up it.

brocbrocach

https://www.kerrycycling.com/the-conor-pass/
Not much extra info there but the wind can definitely be a real factor there.

Really well organised super event, lots of stewards and guards on duty,
Give Ring of Beara a run for its money in terms of scenery, hopefully grow from here,

koutoubia

Deleted User wrote: »

Really well organised super event, lots of stewards and guards on duty,
Give Ring of Beara a run for its money in terms of scenery, hopefully grow from here,

+1
Certainly a super well run event.
Hope the poor fooker who went over the wall and into the fencing ala Hoogerland is ok.

jamesd

Loved it myself, Conor Pass was lovely.

Whats happening

1 tiny criticism.. why did all the sandwiches have to contain mayo, like ham and cheese with mayo?? A simple bit of butter...

But other than that super day out helped by great weather, great marshalling..

deweybible

Agree it was an excellent event. Great route and really enjoyed the day. Marshalling and road markings were of highest standard.

One minor criticism was finish-line area seemed a bit dis-organised. Great finishing in town centre but didn't see any food option at finish and the bike-rack area in BOI car park had less than a dozen bikes as everyone just left finish area quickly I'd say.

monkeysnapper

koutoubia wrote: »

+1
Certainly a super well run event.
Hope the poor fooker who went over the wall and into the fencing ala Hoogerland is ok.

I asked a ambulance driver at end and she said hell be ok thank goodness , it looked bad when I passed .

A really enjoyable day ... I'll say connor pass wasnt as bad as i thought but you can see it's very exposed and on a windy day I'd say is a tough climb....

A very well organised event and I'll do it again next year if it's in Kerry again .

youtheman

monkeysnapper wrote: »

I asked a ambulance driver at end and she said hell be ok thank goodness , it looked bad when I passed .

A really enjoyable day ... I'll say connor pass wasnt as bad as i thought but you can see it's very exposed and on a windy day I'd say is a tough climb....

A very well organised event and I'll do it again next year if it's in Kerry again .

Very well organised event. Whoever arranged the weather deserves special mention (dry with little wind), ideal for cycling this time of the year. The spread in Dingle was something else, I reckon I put on weight over the course of the day.

Ambulance passed me at least twice with sirens and blue lights flashing, hope everyone is ok.

Saw a few photographers out on the course. Are any of them posting the photos on line?.

topper75

Loads of photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/SRACcycle/

You'll surely spot yourself in one.

fat bloke

jamesd wrote: »

I never cycled the Conor pass - is it tough?

Well?

Was it?:pac:

plodder

They should change the name to SKAC though.

jamesd

fat bloke wrote: »

Well?

Was it?:pac:

No actually it was not bad at all, 25 minutes up it so I was happy enough.

deweybible

Disappointing to see on official Facebook page that this sportive is not taking place in 2020.

Surprised really as was previously announced that would be taking place and was an excellent well attended event in 2019.

harringtonp

deweybible wrote: »

Disappointing to see on official Facebook page that this sportive is not taking place in 2020.

Surprised really as was previously announced that would be taking place and was an excellent well attended event in 2019.

When it ran in ennistymon/lahinch a year was skipped but then it happened again the following year.

And this was the start of animosity between it and the local club. Riverside used to run their charity sportive in Autumn and when Srac didn't run that year, they switched to spring. Then Srac came back the following year and you had 2 sportives out of the same town offering similar routes within a week or 2 of each other. And it all kicked off from there