Cycling Ireland 2026 road racing

N=1 on the vets

• you are making a season long commitment, as you're paying up front. And people still bin it off with 2 marshal slots plus WW200 marshalling
• While there isn't really clear logic to upgrades/ downgrades, there's 6 ability groups so everyone is fairly competitive. Not saying it's necessarily the wrong approach, but CI gone the other way from 4 to 3 categories.
• Most years I take out an Open Racing licence, but a big thing the vets has is the 9am (ish) start and you're home at reasonable hour. I guess the C1 races are trying to attract racers from across the country so justify a later start, but it's definitely a bit of blocker for me.

Well I wouldn't mind handicaps too much, but I've definitely skipped a couple of races due to doubts about my capabilities, with the circuit profile and C3 vs old A4, on top of roll out time.

For the Cotter Cup, do all 3 stages start in Kilrush?

Any more information on the courses for the C3? Be nice to have some more information before committing to the full weekend.

Thanks, not a facebook user.

Will try and find it somewhere.

There badly is a need for a platform where more race details are easy to find for riders.

Perhaps Cycling Ireland can help.

Beat me to it :) Thanks a mil, and yes new finish line outside kerri agri will be used for all races

Nowadays running a race is expensive, ambo, moto marshals, comms, hire of facilities, food and so on, if we left it to sign on morning of race and only a handful of lads showed up then we could get burned.

Plenty of races in recent years have been cancelled because of lack of entries so it just can't work like that anymore, most lads should try to sign up to a sat/sun race at the very latest the mon/tue before, if everyone did this we'd be in a better place.

From generally observing and from reading comments (and the lack of comments), there seems to be a disconnect between 1) those passionate about promoting road racing and who put effort into organising races and keeping the show on the road on the one hand, and 2) those who actually race on the other hand.

As someone who came from other sports (football and athletics), I still struggle to wrap my head around how cycling as a sport is structured in Ireland. Are we trying to ape the European model simply because that's how things are run over there and that's the heartland of cycling? Is there a need for a complete re-think about how cycling is structured? It's like a puzzle wrapped in a riddle - once you're on the inside and have your racing connections I'm sure it all makes sense, bit compared to how other sports operate, the barriers to entry into competing are pretty heavy.

If it was pay-per-play on football, for example, half the clubs in Ireland would fold within a season. Cyclists seem to be a lot more selfish (in the best sense of the word) than competitors in other sports. I've seen the commitment that goes into organising club leagues and CX races/ leagues, and I'm just not sure that the same commitment is shown by the broader cohort of racers. At the end of the day, if we/ you want something to thrive you have to give something back, something more than "I'll pick and choose my races, sign up late in the day, pay my fee and show up for those events".

This isn't meant as a criticism of anyone - as I said at the top, I find the whole structure a bit bizarre and that doesn't really help those racing or looking to get into racing. Our club competes in an excellent club league, but even then you'd rarely ever meet the serious racers in the club. They train on their own, communicate separately to club channels it seems, and are never about for club spins. If this is the norm for most clubs, if it wasn't for the club league option I don't know how people get into the racing scene unless they've come up through junior ranks. And even then, how many clubs have juniors?

Edit