Winter Spins and stuff

Winter....i bloody hate winter.

That time of the year again, clocks have gone back and only the daring few train in the evenings....mostly in a field...so they cant be seen.

Tuesday & Thursday nights:

Usual training in Knocklyon for the cross and MTB crew. Heading out at 6:15 as normal from Spar. Sessions are getting bigger now, nearly 16 riders at the last one....a guy left after 10 mins hence the nearly.

Wed afternoon spin:

Due to the hour going back we are going to get rid of these for a while, just gets a bit dangerous when its getting dark at 5 and a group of riders forget to bring lights! However...as of next week we will be starting turbo/roller training up in the gym again. We have an allocated slot up there and we should start to use it. Take it easy, take it hard, your call. If you've never rode rollers before come along and learn...always good fun. Probably head for a beer in the slipper after.

Saturday Morning Road Spin:

Yes they are back and with vengeance, with the cross lads talking themselves up we need to keep the roadies legs spinning over for the winter season. Going to meet at the back of the hub at the lovely hour of 9:30am and head out on the road for a few hours. Not sure on where or how long, the group will decide when it meets up. Bring a few quid incase of cake stop, bring water, food and warm clothes.

Sunday Cross Race:

Up in Lisburn, up north, 3rd round of the Ulster CX league. Good course, nice fast section by the canal, bring armbands if you dont like water, its bound to be a wet one. Info at: http://www.dromaracc.co.uk/ucx/UCX_Series2009.htm

Thats it more or less, talks of beers on Friday, more on that when its confirmed

Ulster Cyclocross League Round 2

Another weekend another cross race. Season is kicking off fully now with most people having dusted their bikes off and getting them covered in mud all over again.

Sunday saw a long drive up to Carrickfergus for the second round of the Ulster Cyclocross League, first round also being the Supercross Cup the weekend before in Lurgan. 2 hours 45 mins later we finally arrived in a field in the middle of nowhere. Wind blowing, rain tanking down, and what looked like a sodden field beside the playing pitches. Thankfully we found out that we were going to get showers after the event so the mood was cheered up a little....despite the obvious standing water in the field.

Only 34 riders turned up due to weather, roadworks, and general apathy. On top of that only 5 riders from down South, poor show lads. Gridding up after a pointless two lap warmup, which ment that 30 mins were spent cleaning the bike before warming up on the road again, had me sitting on the second row with a direct line at the holeshot.

10 seconds, clip in, check the gearing. GO. Gun it up the hill and get into the first corner in 6th place. Hold it through the first few corners until the second hill. Drop a place to Fergus and so the fight began. 5 laps back and forth each of us fighting for every inch in the corners and hills. Every descent I'd take him, only to loose it on the hill. 5th lap and I put in a big effort, get a gap of 4m going into the hill and just kept going, needed to drop him! Top of the hill and he's blown, keep it going on the descent and by the end of the lap I have maybe 10seconds on him and he's slowing.

7th lap and disaster; chain pops off as i hit it with my heel pedaling through a tight right hand corner. By the time i have it back on and get moving again Fergus has caught me and gone past. Doing my best for a lap to get back onto him but not a chance, he's motoring and i cant get back.

7th place, just outside the prize money. But good points in the league non the less.

Lots of photos from Andy Potts at : http://mitzelphoto.fotopic.net/c1773205.html

Supercross Cup Round 1

Report from Greg(268)who raced up at the Supercross Cup 1st round in Lurgan at the weekend:

Up early to meet the lads from WORC and to scab a lift to lovely lovely Lurgan. Racing up North always has a different feel to it, you dont know who's going to line up and it makes for better racing as you dont know just how hard the others can go. Add to that first race of the season and you have a perfect recipie for a good race.

Last years nationals were hosted in Lurgan and it proved to be a mixed bag, good but not great, not a race i'd rank as A1 but not a B class race. Yesterday the Apollo boys pulled all the stops out and the course was as good as any UCI cat race you are going to get in the UK.....not as good as the St Anne's round mind you ;)

Warmed up with the WORC boys (my other club) which felt good, all 5 of us trucking around, checking out the roots and lines and generally looking professional. I'm sure we looked like cocks but sure thats just the way. 5 laps warm up, then told the race is 30mins late, 2 more slow paced laps and we're lining up. Very warm day by cross standards so shorts and jerseys were the order of the day, long finger gloves still though.

30 seconds to start, clip in right foot, look for a line through the mess that's about to occur. GO, hard out, hitting max HR in about 30 seconds, into the first 15 and hitting the first bend, get a few places here and push push push. Boards, flat, boards, uphill and corneres, singletrack, straightaway, start finish area. 9 more times around this...this is going to suck.

Ollie on left, Arek on the right, Polish Ultra Man!

Got dropped by the bunch on lap 3 and ended up in no mans land. Stuck it out for a lap then let Arek and Ollie from MAD get up onto me, hid behind Arek into the wind section, passed him on all the tech stuff. Ollie was there 2 seconds ago..where's he gone! Good hard racing, needed to stay alert as Arek was bound to attack me. Laps 6-7 i recovered, watched Arek and figured i could beat him on the last straight and all the runs, on the singletracks i needed to get ahead of him, he owned me there. Must work on my twisty stuff.

Lap 8 it all kicked off, we had picked up another northern rider and they started rotating attacks on me into all the single track sections. Had to dig in hard so as to not get beaten to them. Every time we got in i eased up and tried to get the breathing under control while checking every 5 seconds. Mind was getting tired but the body was even worse, cramping, needing to puke, usual joys of cross.

Massive attack from Arek, tried to go around me on the straight. out of the saddle 50*14 trying to get ahead of him, massively late breaking into a corner nearly puts me in the spectators but he didn't get past. Suffering, need to recover. Northern lad attacks, cant get his wheel, he's into the singletrack before me, riding fast need to catch him. Cant get him, flat section, Arek goes past. Boards, the boards will save me, these guys cant run. Hit the boards section flat out, in between the lads and running hard, quick mount and back on the gas, ahead, now recover on the twisty climb. Second boards, 5m's on them. Into the single track Arek right on my wheel, can hear him breathing hard, he's on the edge. Must attack early.

Last section of single track i'm clicking up the gears, hitting the exit onto the fast section i'm in 50*15 and still going faster, click, out of the saddle, click, sprinting, 100m to go, quick glance, he's blown! Click click click down, squeal go the brakes, right, left 180 turn, roll over the line. Roll around catching my breath, shake hands with the lads, roll off and try to keep the vomit down, i need a drink bad. Stomach and thighs cramping. Best feeling in the world.

All this for 22nd place. You gotta love cross.

Wednesday 14/10 Road Spin

Good group out on the road today. Mick, Dermo, Oisin, Peter and Peadar headed out for a couple of hours to Naul and back, with a coffee stop halfway. Unfortunately Katie couldn't make it due to puncturing on the way in. Weather was grand and we'd a bit of craic.

Cyclocross session tomorrow night in the Park - 7pm at the magazine fort. Bring lights. Ask Greg for further details.

Seems like people are agreeing Wednesdays are a good day to roll out of DCU for a couple of hours, but let us know if you think otherwise. Lads are racing 'cross in Lurgan this weekend, so we probably won't organising anything for this weekend, but feel free to organise some training amongst yourselves! Send an email to the club if you are for example living on campus, heading out for a couple of hours and looking for some company. Lots of demand for an MTB spin next week, possibly heading out to ride some trails in Howth. Check your emails, the blog and the twitter for details.

Welcome to DCU Cycling Club

Hello and welcome to the DCU Cycling Club!

Sorry about the long post, but it'll explain all that is going on!

First of all thanks for joining and, this is our 5th year back and after the successes last year lets make it a good one!

So, down to business! My name is Greg and I'm the treasurer of the club and ex chairperson, I've been a DH and XC mountain biker for years, but made the transition to the track a few years ago. I've also been known to do the odd bit of Triathlon, and cyclocross just because I don't get enough pain. The rest of the committee is made up off a mix of roadies, mountain bikers, triathletes and fixed gear freaks:

Diarmuid O Cronin - aka Dermo : Chairperson (Roadie and track rider)
Mick McCarthy : Secretary (Roadie soon to be cross rider)
Mick Maher : Pro Officer (XC MTB)
Mick Dever :Webmaster (Dirt Jumper / Lycra sucks believer)


_The Club:_
The club is now in its 5th year and still going strong. Last year we hosted the most successful cyclocross round of the super cross cup, and this year we have been given the honour of hosting the National Cyclocross Championships in January of 2010. We also hosted the cyclocross intervarsities last year, where we won the mens team event.

The initial idea of the club was to get a group of riders who are interested in racing competitively in the MTB and road scene as well as catering for recreational riders and people who want to compete in the more specific disciplines like track and triathlon........oh I may have forgotten to mention the beer which happens every now and again. However since then we have won multiple intervarsity titles, had members race at world intervarsity level, and compete and win at both national and international level. For a relatively young club we have a high race pedegrie, even though deep down we are a mongrel of several different clubs from around the country :)

Training and trips:_
Each week you should be getting a mail from the club, this will have a list of the activities that the club is planning for the week on it. These will in general be either MTB spins, road spins, tri training sessions or whatever else is going on in the club that week (races, drinking sessions, and so on). We are going to try and alternate the organised weekend spins between mountain and road each weekend. This will allow those of us who like to do both, to do both! The intensity of the spins will depend on who turns up on the day, later into the semester we will start to have harder specific spins, and easier relaxed spins. But don't worry the pace will always be that of the slowest rider...unless were sprinting....or going downhill very fast.

A rule of thumb for all club spins *you must *wear a bike helmet. THIS IS NOT AN OPTION. If you are on a club MTB spin you need to have a lid and be aware that you are likely to crash at some point. Simple. For all MTB, road racing, track racing, and triathlon events you also must have a helmet this is to comply with Cycling Ireland regulations, and, if you do take a spill on a session, its less to worry about and you'll have to wear one racing anyway's.

Roadies
With no lack of roads to train on this wont be an issue for the roadies or tri heads in the club. Spins from the college, either the back of the Hub, or from the front of Spar, will be going on every Wednesday while we still have the light, and longer spins will be being organised for the weekends over the coming months. Local spins to the college include laps of the Boot Inn course, laps in the Phoenix Park, spins out in Skerries and Howth direction. Other weekend spins will be organised to the likes of the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. In order to make these spins a bit easier, if you have a car and a bike rack could you send me a mail if you are willing to do a bit of driving. Come the summer we will be looking to enter the club members in races and hopefully get in on some interclub racing too. Also the intervarsity road races provide a great pre season test, and we will be going so you have a target for all that winter training.

Mountain Bikers and cross riders
Same as with the roadies, the plan is to run a major trip every second weekend. These trips for the start will be going from DCU out to the likes of Howth and St Anne's park. These spins will be good for those ppl who are new to mountain biking and those who just wanta quick spin. Trips will be getting organised to the likes of Three-rock, Ballinstoe and Wicklow, but transport for these trips is kinda dependent on the situation with grants and who is free on the day. So if you have a car and a bike rack, send me a mail so we can organise trips that little easier. Cyclocross training is being held on a Tuesday night out in Knocklyon and people should be cycling out to it most weeks. All you need is a cross bike or a MTB and a willingness to run about in the mud.

Track
To any track riders out there I say welcome. Plans for the winter include trips to Manchester velodrome and some recreational grass track racing as well as some real track racing to be arranged for the new year, with the possibility of some intervarsity action going on too. I'll be training at the Dublin track over the winter (weather permitting) so you are all more than welcome. Some of us will also be training, and racing, in Manchester in the winter league so if you're interested in this get in contact with me ASAP. For those who have never ridden a fixie before, its not scary, it's fantastic. Nothing wrong with one gear, no brakes, and no free-wheel. It's perfectly safe...mostly.

In general
If you or a few others feel like just going for a spin. Do it. Use twitter account, meet up for rides and get out there. We will always try to run as many trips and events as we can but if you guys feel like a spin in the middle of the week go for it! The easiest way to organise this is....

The website and forum:
Website http://dcucyclingclub.blogspot.com/ is where we will be updating all the info for the club. This is currently under construction and we will hope to get it up and running within the next week or so. So keep checking in. Keep an eye on the Twitter feed, this will be the easiest way to update on spins, get other people to come for spins, and to just shout out random things. http://twitter.com/DCUcyclingclub is the address, and just type @DCUcyclingclub to post to it. Try to keep it vaguely sensible its not going to be monitored 24/7

At this stage I think I have typed enough so I'll leave it with,

Thanks,

Greg
--
"Ride it like you stole it'