2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 2 Stage 2 - Macheras Mountains

Start of the women's race followed by masters and juniors

Today was the 2nd stage of round 2 of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup. The race was a point to point race on the same course as last year.

My bike run perfectly after Ryan put on the new cassette and chain rings half an hour before the race. And the weather was nice and warm again, too! The start went OK and I tried to catch the group of girls just ahead of me, but just couldn't get myself to push that little bit harder to close the gap. So I was riding around most of the course by myself. And I really started enjoying myself once I hit the singletrack climb. I almost caught up with some of the girls in front, but again just couldn't go harder. I had a lot of fun on the super long single track descent, going so much faster than last year. I absolutely loved it!

Sue Clarke (GBR) entering the long single-track descent

I took it relatively easy to the finish too, and arrived with a huge smile on my face - I definitely didn't go hard enough, but at least it was a lot of fun!

Thanks to Marios and Polys for getting the chain rings and cassette to us just in time, Thomas for the tools to put them on, and Harry and Friedl for the feedzone support.

I came in 7th, improving on my General Classification by 3 places. Results up here.

Mtb-live.com has again captured some post race reactions.

2010 Cyprus Sunshine Cup Round 1 - Voroklini

Woman's podium :)

Wow, that was HARD! The first race of the season is always hard, but this one seemed so much harder again than any first race in any season. It didn't help that the race organizers had added another lap to this course, so that my race was 2h 4min long!

There were 20 girls in the women's Elite race, with a high profile field, including the vice U-23 world champ and several national champs, most of them using these races as early season race prep. Each of the 5 laps had 240m of climb and boy, the climbs were tough. There were some power sapping steppy climbs, some technical singletrack climbs and some draggy fireroad climbs, with some granny gear kicker climbs strewn in for good measure. Hell, it felt like you were climbing almost all of the time! But maybe that also had to do that whatever height you gained was lost in no time on the super steep technical descents, featuring amongst them the famous dry riverbed descent that has seen many a man walking.

Women's start

Anyhow, back to the race and the feeling of lactate acid filling up your legs and turning them to leady jelly. I didn't have the greatest of starts but did my best to stick with the lead group of about 6 girls. While the front few girls pulled away from the first lap, Alexandra Engen (SWE), Sue Clarke (GBR) and I were ding-donging for about a lap before I managed to slowly pull away from them both. I was able to increase my gap and even when my legs started cramping up in the last lap I was able to stay away to cross the line in 4th place - I am so so happy to have had such a good start into the new season.

Having fun on the techy descents

One thing that was very different this year was that I felt really comfortable on the technical descents. It felt like something has clicked in my head - and I rode all of them well controlled and relaxed, possibly even making up time on them. I cannot explain what happened, since a lot of my recent training has not been very technical, but I really enjoyed them. So far so good :)


Thanks again to Frederick for doing the bottles - this year with ZipVit Energy drink - it seemed to work well in the race :)

Results on cyclingnews.com

Race Report British NSP Round 3 - Grizedale, Lake District

Soo, last weekend saw the 3rd race in series of the British NPS taking place in Grizedale in the Lake District, UK. Ryan and me took the overnight ferry from Dublin to Birkenhead (just opposite Liverpool), which leaves at 10pm and takes 7 hours, meaning that you are woken for breakfast at 4:15am (not that I really slept anyway, with all that rocking!!) and leave the boat at 5am... We drove the 2.5hours to Grizedale to check out if the course is already set up, but at that time the organizers were just waking up. So we made our way to Hawkshead, a few miles away, where we would stay in a B&B. We thought of getting a coffee first and then check into the B&B, but none of the Cafes were actually open that early in the morning. So we wandered around a little like zombies in circles in this tiny amzingly beautiful and picturesque Beatrix Potter village, until we thought it late enough to be able to check into our B&B (about 9am...) and thank god they had our room all ready, so we just went in and went to sleep. A few hours later we got up, had an early lunch and made our way to the race course, where the car park had already started filling up with mountain bikers for the pre-ride. We put our bikes together and went off.


A view into a little road in Hawkshead - there were flowers everywhere!

The course basically consisted of fireroad climbs, linkers and flat sections mixed with technical singletrack climbs and descents. The most notable bits where 2 technical singletrack climbs and a single track section with a very steep and technical descent of the loose dusty earth and stone type with a short steep kicker climb. The singletrack was almost all purposebuilt hardpacked all weather trails with the fireroads being quite gravelly at times. I found it hard to get a good flow on these singletracks, as they weren't that smooth and lacked berms. One lap amounted to about 275m of climb, which is quite significant.


The course from a bird's view.

On the race day itself, all the usual suspects and then some found themselves on the start line. The most notable "new" rider was Kate Potter who had missed the previous 2 UK NPS races due to other race engagements and had placed 33rd in the Fort Williams World Cup the weekend before, so seemed to be one to watch out for. From the gun shot there was tight battling for places. The first tight righthand corner on hardpressed gravel just 200m from the slightly downhill grassy start lead to a bit of a messy turn. On the fireroad climb towards the first singletrack climb, there was more fighting for positions as was on the climb itself, leading to some girls getting a little stuck, which was the chance taken by Sue Clarke and Jenny Copnall to enter the singletrack descent first, followed by me. With no real overtaking opportunities on this track, we all rode nicely in line. Then Sue Clarke was struck by bad luck and punctured, having to stop to fix it. There was a bit more jostling for places on the top fireroad section and the tricky steep singletrack before the finishing order was already emerging with Kate Potter in front, steadily increasing her gap on Jenn O'Connor in second place, who was more closely followed by Jenny Copnall. At the start of the second lap one girl was still in 4th place, but I was able to catch her on the top fireroad section to move myself into 4th. For a while I could still see glimpses of Jenny, and I was hoping to catch her, but couldn't keep up with that speed. I rode most of the other laps by myself, finishing about 3min behind Jenny and about 6.5min behind Kate Potter. I didn't feel I was riding the course well, so I was happy enough with the result. Maybe I didn't push myself so hard because I knew what was coming up on day 2 of the event? ;)


Ryan and I in our new and shiny Torq sponsored gear :)

Full results, report and photos can be found here. Jenny Copnall's experience of the race are recorded here.

Some more pics by Rob Crayton can be found here and pics by Oliver Coat are here.

And I'm sure, Kate Potter will soon put her race report online here.

Race Report Irish NPS Round 3 Maghermorne

A race in a quarry?? Yes, a race in a quarry. Pretty far away too, so Ryan and me took the Silver bullet up to Monaghan on Saturday after doing a bit of a recovery ride together around our home mountains (one of the few times where we actually went cycling together! He says I'm too slow for any other rides :(). We did a bit of a hill climb effort to open up the legs for the race on Sunday and I did good - I really pushed myself. We skipped the pre-ride, it wasn't one of our A-races and besides, Ryan remembered most of the course from last year.

Start of Juniors and Elite ladies

So, Sunday noon we arrived at the race place and did a practice lap, which took me 25min. The course was really flat with a few serious kickers and short steep downhills, dusty, dry, and very gravelly, some sections had really big stones on them and washing your wheel out was a danger almost everywhere. There was no let up the whole way. In my category there was only one other contender, Cait Elliott. As she had just returned to training from several months of travel without training, I was pretty sure that she would not pose any serious threat.

The Juniors are sprinting off ahead (all pictures in this post curtesy of Aine)

We two girls set off with the two Juniors on our 4 lap race and from the start on I tried to get away from Cait. She tried to hang on for a bit, but I was able to get away about a third of a lap into the race. I sticked on with the Juniors for a bit and was caught by the Experts pretty quickly, all ahead Luke Manning, who was showing his full potential, trying to make up in the NPS for his bad luck in the K Capital Cups.

It's supposed to be a smile....

And so the race went on pretty uneventful, apart from in my second lap where I fell trying to avoid a big loose rock in the ground and being caught by another, throwing me back first into the rocky ground - my whole back is covered in scratches!! At this stage I really need to apologize to Stew - this is the second race I fell in front of him and obstructed his way! And thanks to Luke Ireland for not riding over me when I couldn't get out of the way fast enough. I got back onto the bike and went on to finish my race in first position with a total time of 1:19:31, over 10 minutes ahead of Cait. That was a really short race - I think 5 laps would have been better, since the laps were so fast.

Riding side by side, but not for long!

Full results of the race can be downloaded from here.

Ryan had a pretty good race too, also winning his race. He was very pleased with how rode and he'll be putting his report up here.

Some photos taken from Aine can be found here and somebody even took videos and cut together little clips, so here they are in order found on youtube:

Video 1 - covering Sports and underage races
Video 2, Video 3, Video 4 - covering Elite, Masters, Vets races

Oh - and I got a (farmer's) tan!! The weather was absolutely beautiful, albeit a little windy at times.

Roll on British NPS 3!

Race Report British Enduro Round 2 Drumlanrig, Scotland

After the XC NPS race on Saturday, Ryan and me tucked into a good meal at the local Thai restaurant in Dumfriess which we had found by chance when we were desperately looking for some half way healthy place to eat. We actually had 2 portions of rice each with and even though I think we had the biggest meals in the restaurant, we were still the skinniest people in there....

Beautiful bluebells were growing in the woods - amazing trails!

Anyway, Sunday morning was a bit of a rush to get to the race place due to miscalculation of time, but we made it in the end and arrived all ready at the start line in time. There were only 5 ladies in the 100km ladies category, including Sally Bigham, my biggest competitor who beat me in the last Enduro by a mere 47 seconds.

The whistle went off and we went up the hill. Sally and me took the first 2 positions for the race from the start and for the first out of the 8 12.5km laps I hung on to Sally to study her riding to find a suitable time and place to attack. She was ahead of me in the singletrack and I noticed that I might be able to break away from her by entering the long tricky singletrack section ahead of her in the next lap, because I had the advantage of knowing most of the trails due to taking part in the XC race the day before (they reused all of the trails from the day before and had added some more singletrack and a few bits of fireroad), so the plan was to attack her on the next lap at the start of the singletrack section and get out of her sight quickly and then stay on a steady speed and hope she won't catch up to me again.

Interesting profile - notice my heartrate steadily decreasing over time

And so I did attack on the steep climb towards the first singletrack section and sped off. I actually managed to do my fastest lap on my second lap with a time of 44min 3 seconds - the fastest ladies lap time of the day! On lap 3 I started slowing down again to a more conservative speed and cycled on. Unfortunately my lower back started hurting a lot (it had already yesterday in the XC race) during the race as the course was so rooty and rutty and it really shook you about, especially on a hardtail. Then it seemed that my attack move might have been a little too fast and had taken too much out of me, affecting my lap times. Eventually, just before the end of lap 4 Sally had caught up to me again and overtook me.

For the rest of the race she was able to steadily widen the gap by staying at a pretty much constant pace whereas I was having more and more difficulty with my back, having to stop multiple times to stretch it out and therefore having increasingly slower laps. When Ryan lapped me on my 7th lap, he told me that there was no girls for miles behind me, so at least there was no danger from behind, because my back was giving me serious trouble there was I had no chance to catch up with Sally, so at least I knew I had safely bagged the 2nd place and didn't have to kill myself for the last lap. The last lap was actually the most enjoyable, I rode it relaxed and smoothly, knowing this is the last time I had to go over these roots, around these corners, along the lakeside, through the field of bluebells in this absolutely stunning estate and actually enjoyed the prettiness of it all on this beautiful day.

After six and a half hours I went over the finish line, only able to lie down on the ground - exhaustion really kicks in when you allow it and Ryan was really good in trying to make me drink and eat. Well, he had already had an hour to relax as he had finished the race in 5:30h, taking a very respectable 4th place in his race.

The "Silver Bullet", a 1992 Peugeot 205 - who would have known it fits 2 adults, 3 bikes and a ton of other stuff!

Thank you also to Karen for doing my bottles and for running for a bar for me and thanks to Matt from Torq for his supply of racing fuel, especially that spontaneous donation of a caffeinated gel at the start of my last lap - you really felt the kick of the caffeine!

All in all it was a really good racing weekend and I am pretty happy with my performance. I wish though I had a full suspension bike for courses like this, my back was still killing me a few days after.

Another great performance from the Irish squad was shown by Peter Buggle in the 50km race who took first.

Results, report and photos of the race can be found here.

Race report British NPS Round 2 Drumlanrig - A disappointing race in a great location.

This weekend saw the British NPS and Enduros round 2 in the beautiful setting of the Drumlanrig Castle estate in Scotland. On the drive up to the castle, you turn left into an avenue skirted with trees that leads directly towards the castle, affording a great view, like a grand entrance. The start/finish area was just in front of the castle, just amazing!

Drumlanrig Castle - what a setting for a race!

We did our practice run on Friday, the course started with a sharp climb up a fireroad and through a feedzone, then pretty quickly you hit the first bit of tight singletrack. Most of the course was actually singletrack, probably about 90%, very dry, but also very rooty and rocky, you really needed a full susser to get the enjoyment out of it. There was only very few fireroad sections interspersed in the about 7.5km long course with about 180m of climb per lap. There was one fun drop worth mentioning just at the finish area, great for the spectators. The course was 100% rideable and could be cleared without dabbing.

Due to my 2^nd place in the first round I was gridded in the front row for the start – wohoo! I knew I had to push hard in the beginning up that fireroad climb to hit the singletrack before all the other girls. The plan was to hang on to Jenny Copnall as long as I could from the start on.

Yeah, great plan, should have worked too, had I not messed up my start.... I stupidly decided to grab my bottle just before the start as I had a dry mouth (ah – the nerves) and wasn't ready when the whistle went off. Until I had it stowed away again half of the girls where ahead of me up that climb. ARGH!!! I got stuck behind some slower girls and the gap to the front girls started to widen immediately. I was able to catch up with some of the girls though during the race and there was a good bit of jostling for places, I never knew which position I was in, I overtook some girls and was overtaken by some others.

The race itself was pretty exhausting, made even harder because it was so hot and the air so stuffy and humid – I was looking forward to my next bottle at the end of every lap – big thanks to Rachel to do the bottles for me! The steep climbs became harder and harder as the laps went on and I was happy we only had to do 4 laps. I was pretty disappointed with my race, never felt I got into any kind of rhythm and just couldn't catch the two girls who were just in front of me for some of the race. I was pretty pleased then to find out that I actually had managed to work my way up to 5^th position after all, earning 10 UCI points – my first UCI points ever!

I felt pretty crap after the race and had no idea how I would do the 100km marathon the next day....

There were a few more Irish people at the race taking home a good few trophies:

Rachel Wisdom came third in the ladies Sports race, Robin Seymour took 3rd in the men's Elite. Ryan had an unfortunate crash damaging his rotor so that he had to race most of the race with breaks rubbing but still placing 19th. Peter Buggle came 2nd in the Masters category after he was stolen out of his win by Ian Nimo who overtook him on the last few meters before the finish line after Buggle had led through most of the race.

Full results, report and photos can be found here. Jenny Copnall's experience of the race are recorded here.

Going pro.....

.... nah, just kidding, but after last weekends results I felt almost like a pro anyway....

The weekend was spent mostly in Thetford Forest, UK, to take part in my first races abroad, i.e. the British XC NPS Round 1 race on Saturday and the British Enduro NPS Round 1 race on the Sunday.

Ryan and me packed up our stuff on Thursday evening and flew over from Dublin on Friday early morning to Stansted, which is about an hour from Thetford (if you go the correct way that is.... ;)). Got the rental car and decided to go straight to the race location due to the detour ("sightseeing") we had taken. We arrived in Thetford Forest an d built up our bikes, got changed and it started lashing.... :( and I was sooo looking forward to my first good weather race this season! When the rain let off a little, we took the chance and went off for our practice lap.

Course description: flat like a pan cake. A lap was 10km and consisted basically of smooth and swervy singletrack loops through the forest (mostly little walking paths) connected through some straight fireroad sections. The rain had transformed a few sections of the course into a bit of a mud bath, but apart from that is was pretty untechnical. Only 2 drops are worth mentioning, both of them bombholes - one of them with a tricky steep climb out that many people didn't get. Then there was one great bit of singletrack section that was very uppy and downy and became my favourite section of the course because you could hammer along this section, lean into the corners, fly down into the drops and use your speed to come out of them again, you could do almost the whole section without pedalling if you wanted to! The speed you got was amazing! Sooo much fun!

Anyway, just as we finished the practice laps it started raining again, so we set off to find our B&B "Magdalen House" about 15min away from Thetford Forest in a place called Methwold. It was located just at the end of a farm driveway, with open farmland around 3 sides of it, beautiful! The countryside was beautiful anyway, I loved it!

Random pretty driving through the countryside pic :)

We were very well received in the absolutely cute and quaint B&B by the owners Keith and Lorna who really did everything possible to make our stay as comfortable and stress-free as possible. The first great thing was we were supplied with abucket of soap water, brushes and a water hose to wash our bikes off the mud and dirt - a quite sandy and rough dirt that was loudly grinding in your brakes and between the chain rings with each pedal stroke. The B&B itself was very beautiful and pretty inside, very clean and well kept and just felt very homely. After washing our bikes and then ourselves we set off to eat at a Thai/English restaurant. A lovely Thai meal was had - with 4 portions of rice for the 2 of us - we would need the energy tomorrow.

Ryan in front of our B&B "Magdalen House"

On Saturday when we arrived back at the race location the field in front of it was filled with tons of cars and people - the racing scene in the UK is just so much bigger than in Ireland, it was great to be part of such a big event.

The hustle and bustle around the start area - they had catering and sales tents!

My race started at 1pm and we 16 Elite ladies gathered at the start line, the first 10 ladies or so gridded in the first 2 rows, me having to start in the third and last row - wow - three rows of ladies racing! Never seen that before! The weather was beautiful and sunny, so that was a plus too. It was a little strange to start in a group where you don't know anybody and have no idea how you compare to them - I knew that the favourite for this race was Jenny Copnall and recognized her by her jersey, so I knew who to chase, but no idea about the others really. The whistle was blown and we were off. From the very beginning, even before we hit the first singletrack the group started to separate, about 4 ladies in front and I worked my way through the girls to try and hang on to the 4 in front, entering the singletrack in about 5th position. The speed was very fast from the beginning on and I could see that Jenny got away from the front group quite early, with a group of 3 girls working together trying to follow her. For most of my first lap (out of 5, they had added one since the course was bone dry and therefore very fast) I worked as hard as I could to try and catch the group of 3 in front of me - it was great to always have an aim in front of you. My heartrate monitor told me that I went super hard in this first lap (not that I really needed telling), with my heart rate up in the 180s! and I almost binned myself in this first lap. I had to let off for a bit by the end of it and was overtaken by some girls, but by my second lap I settled into some "comfortable" racing speed (mind you, I was still giving it my all, but at least it felt more sustainable for the race length) and overtook them again, slowly closing in on the group of 3 girls in front of me. As it happened one of the girls from that group dropped back, being my target to catch for the next few laps - so cool to have people to chase!! She had a big "TARGET" written on her bum (metaphorically) and I chased her down in I think which was the last lap - it actually really suited me that they added that extra 5th lap, because I think I overtook most of the girls in the last lap (not sure though, it's all a bit of a blur though to me, the race that is). Once I overtook girl in position 4, I saw number 3 and chased her down, and as soon as I had gotten her I saw number 2 and chased her down as well, and then it was just a short bit that I had to keep away from them until I was finished with my race. When I finished and got confirmed that I had indeed finished in 2nd place just after multiple British Champ Jenny Copnall, I was head over heels! I had come in at 2:12:45, 3min and 22sec after Jenny and had put a gap of just over a minute onto Paula Mosely who took third.

The 3 happy winners! First international success for MAD Ireland!!! :)

That was soooo much fun, but I think I've never gone so hard in my life, I really really pushed myself hard in this one, really enjoying the craic of racing against lots of very strong and good girls, you always had a target or were being chased and never spent a minute of the race by yourself. Also, it was such a friendly atmosphere, the girls chatting to each other on the trails while racing (I know my coach will now say that I didn't go hard enough if we could chat), but it was just so nice! I was told that this was their biggest Elite ladies field they've seen so far, so I am really proud of my result, even though a few of the big names were missing (such as Kate Potter and Amy Hunt).

Full results and race report written by Joolze Dymond can be found here and pictures (also by Joolze) can be found here.

Unfortunately Ryan had been less lucky in his race, having been forced to crash at 30km an hour in his first lap and hurting his already sore shoulder even more so that he decided to pull out after a few more laps to save his energy for the Enduro race on Sunday - thanks for cheering me on though!

And of course, a success like this would not have been possible without the help of the following people: Ryan for being such a good coach - sledgehammering me into fitness over the winter and it's finally paying off (I know there's an "I told you so" from you now), Eamon McConvoy for handing out the bottles and gels while his son, Conor McConvoy was racing for 3rd place, what a fantastic result! and the hosts of Magdalen House for adjusting their breakfast to our dietary needs and being so welcoming and helpful.