Youths: (Thanks to Stephen Ryan)
What a weekend that was. 16 of the youths were involved in the 2 day , 3 stage , Ras na Nog in Drogheda. They had a very tiring , very successful, very bruising , very chilling , very happy, very cycling weekend . A full report is imminent (am waiting to get reports from Killian, Aine, Luca and Ruairi) so will hold off on the detail for now, and just go with a few headlines ;
The May’s Caoimhe and Oisin went home with sackfuls of trophies as they did very well in U16 and U12’s respectively. Katies palmares continues to grow impressively. Ronan and Andrew podiumed in their age group on a stage. Aside from the gongs each cyclist will have their own moment that they can feel rightly proud, be it Ruairi’s storming 5th in Stage 2, Aine kicking butt to finish strongly or Christopher finishing Stage 3 after having being pulled when lapped on the earlier stages,
However there are two achievements I would like to pull out here - Ryan, who as you know is recovering from a bad crash , gave up his weekend to come and be Jens Aide de Camp. He was invaluable helping out and making sure everything ran smoothly. Thanks Ryan.
And in Stage 3 on Sunday , while leading the stage and with the overall leader behind her and chasing hard, Annie saw a fallen cyclist by the side of the road and stopped her own race to get off and help Amy from Moynalty . Well done Annie, that was a wonderful thing you did.
Full report to follow.
IVCA
Our IVCA racers woke to a miserable wet Sunday morning but a good number still made it out to Kilcullen for round 3 of the league. Not the Club PRO though who is still a softie!
A good few of the usual Scott-Orwell Wheeler suspects were rostered to Marshal and a few are also away in sunny Spain so it was left to the likes of Orla Hendron, Ken O’Neill, Patrick Malone, John Twomey and a few others to fly the flag. No points this week but reports are of a fast race with one crash in the Scratch Race which split the bunch. No injuries or Orwell caught up in it thankfully
National League Series
Meanwhile down in Blarney it was the Scott-Orwell Women who turned out to represent the club. Breda Horan, Monica Freiband and new member Aine Donegan were well in the mix throughout the race. Aine is new to racing but comes from a triathlon background. Having stayed with the race leaders Katharine Smyth and Eve McCrystal for most of the race Aine was dropped on the final hill. She fought all the way to the line, putting her TT experience to good use but couldn’t bridge the gap. However, 3rd place in a National League race on only her second outing is a fantastic result and we look forward to following her progress in the club.
- Eve McCrystal Garda-Richies Bike Shop
- Katharine Smyth Team Madigan
- Aine Donegan Scott Orwell
Coombes Connor Classic (thanks to Michael Hanley)
This race was the closest I had got to seeing some of the most talented juniors in the country in action. And a few minutes later, they were gone. Off into the distance, unfettered by crosswinds, they made racing look like childsplay. Which is easy when you are children.
Race prep was not ideal. My back was complaining and the weather looked beyond miserable. But come on, if you’re going to be fussy about what weather you race in then your numbers will remain unpinned from March till September!
The sign-on at Bellestown racecourse would fool any newcomers into believing that this race was going to contain some serious lumps, however the circuit started 5km away and took in several flat laps near Duleek. Very flat and with only wide left hand corners to deal with, this race looks easy on paper. Until you roll the paper up in a ball and throw it to the wind. Whoosh! Gone faster than an NRPT lad the day before the leaving cert.
Myself, Conor Dowler, Daniel McElroy, Colm O’Neill and Paul Kane were the only Orwell representatives in the A3 race, but the Orwell had a strong showing across all the categories, including the newly promoted Paul “The Revelation” Forristal in A1 (seriously, I am never getting tired of his WWE moniker). It was really impressive to see so many racers brave the elements in club colours.
After the neutralised section, I found myself up in the top 10, easily getting pushed off wheels by NRPT youngsters. They are really, really good at holding the space and keeping you out of their way. I think everyone knew how the race would unfold given the gusting crosswinds: the juniors would attack during that section of the race as any chasers would struggle to close down even the smallest of gaps. I was chasing their wheels, like a dog chasing a car, not really knowing what I was doing. One guy would attack and drag about 8 or 9 in a long line, then it would settle down for a few seconds and another NRPT would attack again. Rinse and repeat, again and again they went until finally the elastic snapped and the break went clear, never to be seen again. I was well into the red so I was happy to drop back into the bunch and not try anything stupid for the rest of the race.
The other guys were staying very well positioned near the front. Colm, especially, looked very strong, even with his fluorescent rain cape acting like a sail in the wind and ballooning him up to hulk-like proportions. The race was fairly pedestrian once the break had gone. I guess that’s a feature of A3 racing: not enough organisation to chase down breaks that are out of sight. For me, it’s definitely a case of not having enough ability. Rolling around in the bunch is about all I can muster. Still, I found myself in the top 5 coming into the final few km. Maybe, with some more racing in the legs and on a better day, I could have joined in the sprint. Conor was sat right behind me, talking into my ear, urging me to lead him out. I wanted to tell him that he was really betting on the wrong horse here and he’d better find another wheel. I think I managed a “Conor, I can’t”, before he started his gallop and took the honours for the sprint from the bunch.
We eagerly waited for Paul back at race HQ. Nick Appleby informed us that he had seen Paul Forristal, or a Paul Forristal shaped object in the break with formed full-time pro, Philip Lavery. The same Paul who had modestly joked “that’s the end of the results” after his Gorey wins, rolled into the car park on his own. Conor asked him how he had got on and he raised his fingers in a “V” salute. Yep, he had come second in a sprint from the reduced breakaway, beaten only by Lavery. Unbelievable. I think the real revelation will come when he needs to find more space for all his trophies and commemorative photos.
