CX World Cup round for Dublin in December

Right folks, hands up who watched the race on GCN+ this evening to see if they could spot themselves ✋

I reckon it is a little bit down on last year, however the crowd may have been a little bit more spread out. I think last year's attendance was around 4k.

I did notice a lot more tourists this year than last year. Which will make the department of sport/tourism interested.

EDIT: Sorry it was 8k last year

Did I miss it or was there no trophies presented to the riders on the podium today??

Enjoyed the day out....even with the rain. Some great racing especially the mens race. Far better Catering services this year, but heard a few say the shuttle bus situation at the end was much better last year. Crowds were down on last year and this is the issue, if crowds are decreasing after one year, combined with the extra hassle of getting here for the teams it does not look favourable for the long term hosting of an event in Ireland which would be a pity.

After reading that you would have to worry about the future of the event.

Well from my point of view, I was there last year and was amazing to see the superstars racing i.e. Pidcock, Wout VA, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, Lars VDH, Puck Pieterse who were all absent this year so I'd less motivation to go, combined with the weather I decided to skip it...

But the final nail in the coffin was when I saw the beer tent was selling "Rocksh**" lager!

Looking at the pictures and video coverage you could see the crowds were very light compared with last year so if there's a similar situation next year when the Elite riders are not going to travel over then the Dublin race could be out of the calendar for 2024....

I think I referenced it a few pages back. It's a scheduling problem with the two biggest event organisers in conflict with each other. So you have X20 yesterday and WC (Flanders Classics) today. It's happened with other weekends too, will probably happen again with Val di Sole and Benidorm rounds, so not exclusive to Ireland.

The need to knock heads at the end of the season, put aside petty vested interests and sort out scheduling for next season.

I enjoyed yesterday. The Fanzone, big tent and much much better food options made a big difference for people who are spending half a day there. I caught the end of the MU23 race, got a drink and some food before the Womens... wandered around that end of the course for the first half of the race and then made my way over to the Hills section for the mens. Atmosphere was good. Crowds down a bit. For me, the absence of The Big Three made no difference to the day. Would have liked to see Lars VDH, Puck P and Fem VE. But really, the standard at that level is just great to watch.

Hope it's back again next year... they got a lot of things right this year that they didn't in 2022... a bit more marketing of the event in advance... free tickets to junior riders/ school kids etc, and better race scheduling and it could be fantastic. (Oh, and the weather gods to help us out!)

The Guinness was nice in fairness. If Diageo are the only brewers that will produce the goods, we can't really complain. Certainly not for a small event like this... would the likes of Bru Brewery/ Wicklow Wolf be prepared to sink costs into setting up outdoor bar facilities for something like this? Would be great if they did, but I presume they have to pay to sell their product, so might not be feasible. I dunno, I'd certainly take Rockshore over nothing.

Do you think many didn't come because Wout and Pidcock weren't here this year? Made no difference to me so I can't really tell/ not the best judge. Can't have helped anyway, I suppose.

Treaty City done all the beer for the Tag Rugby World Cup in Limerick so it's feasible I assume.

Dublin is very very weird though in the sense that it doesn't really have any proper heavily locally connected craft breweries. At least not since Porterhouse changed direction and now that mouldy nob McGregor is involved too.

A few more

Actually Hope would be the kind of brewery I was thinking of that has a geographic identity. But it's really not as common to see craft beer in a regular non craft specific Dublin pub compared to Cork/Limerick/Galway. Same goes for better European stuff, never see La Choufe or Hoegarten on draft in a Dublin pub. Dublin has a very noticeable lack of a beer and also food market scene for an Irish or UK city.

Grand Cru distributors supply almost all the Belgian beer in Ireland and I have never seen them run any kind of stand sadly.

There was a lot of talk in work about it today, people actually saw it on the news and thought it looked great.

Did you know that was on? they said, when I told them we rode it Saturday they were taken by the idea. But they hadn't heard of it in advance.

It's a great entry route to cycling for kids, safe, dirty, fun... i think it would support the road scene if properly done.

I'm the Leo DiCaprio pointing at the TV meme all evening 😂

Really enjoyed the event, I regret not getting an earlier train and seeing more of the early races, would like to have wandered around a bit more of the course. I hope it's on the schedule again next year, I'll be back.