The G-ride

With Sherwood Pines only one week away and only one mtb race under my belt this year I was glad for another race opportunity at the G-ride, close to home. The G-ride was constructed by trail building legend Robin Seymour on private land at the Glendalough House at Annamoe. The race acted as a peek preview of the trails before they were officially opened to the public.

A pre-lap of the course confirmed what was promised: tons of flowy singletrack through a beautiful estate - something I am more used to see in the UK actually. The longest climb was done on switchback singletrack - possibly the only way to take the sting out of it.

 Enjoying the flowy single-track along the top section (photo credit: Richie Byrne)

The race itself was good fun. I had raced a hard 100km road race the day before, and went into the G-ride with tired legs and mind. I went hard for the first 2 out of 4 laps and eased off for the last 2 laps, trying to improve my technical skill and ride all the singletrack smoothly.

I recommend having a look at the trails when they are officially open if you didn't get a chance to race!

Now recovery week before flying to Sherwood (= less cycling, more PhD :)).

Results available here.

Thanks as well to Sean for the lift and his superb racing support service and Stew for lend and delivery of helmet and gloves!!!

1st round National Women's League, Bohermeen

I didn't know what to think of this race before I went, as I was here two years ago but due to a wrong shoe/mtb cleats/seized pedal problem I never got to race it. Watching it then didn't really make me want to do it either, with several nasty crashes happening in the nervous, early season men's pelotons.

This year the course was different from 2 years ago, but it was still known to be a flat course and it generally would come down to a bunch sprint. So I wasn't too enthusiastic, since I prefer the hills, but I thought it would be a great race to test my bunch sprinting again.

(Photo Credit: Bohermeen CC. I look too happy with 2nd place!)

The race was four laps of a 16.5km course and there were around 30 ladies signed up to race. The less experienced riders got a minute head start over the larger, more experienced group. There were attacks from the start in our group and even I tested my legs once or twice (yesterdays racing with the A3 men wasn't hard enough to tire me out to be content with just sitting in!), but nothing got away. This stoppy-starty way of racing meant we hadn't made up any time on the front group after 1 lap. In the 2nd lap (I think, it always becomes a blur afterwards) our bunch worked a bit better together and we caught the front group, but it turned out that two people had gotten away from them! After the 2nd lap, we were still down by a minute or so on the leaders. Then, Sara Ortiz had the great idea of trying to bridge across to the 2 leaders and attacked. She opened a gap quickly and I decided it was best to go with her. I attacked as well and chased Sara until I caught her about 8min or so later - she's definitely strong! Looking back I could see we had gotten a decent gap. Then the two of us worked together until we caught the two lead girls. It turned out they were both strong triathletes who had not done any road racing before! We worked together until about a km to go, where Sara and I dropped the other two, and then with 200m to go Sara attacked and I was too late to react, so she won and I came 2nd.

I really enjoyed the race, plenty of action, even though I messed up in the final few hundred meters, but I'm already looking forward to the next one, hopefully with more hills!

Official reports on StickyBottle and Women's cycling.

I am a sprinter!

Well, this weekend there was a choice of a few road races on and Ryan and I agreed on the Annaclone GP on Saturday up north, followed by the Trader's Cup race in Dundalk.

The Annaclone GP was a handicapped race and I, the only woman, raced with the A3s, off first, followed after 2.5min by the A2s and after another 5min by the A1s with Ryan in it. The course was 5 laps of a 12.6km course with a few little drags and shorter kickers, but no big climbs. The weather was fresh but dry. I had no idea how my legs would react in my first road race this season, but I had a good winter and was pretty confident that I would be able to stay with the bunch. However, the pace was superfast from the start and I had trouble hanging on when the attacks started in the first lap. Many times the bunch strung out in one long line and everybody was fighting to keep on the wheel of the next person up. I was doing alright on the climbs, but I had trouble to follow when the pace went up attack after attack, especially when the A2s had caught up with us. In lap 3 a sizeable group started getting a gap when we overtook a farm vehicle and I was killing myself to try and catch back on to them, dangling just behind them for a couple of minutes, going hard, in time trial mode, keeping the head down, looking back, nobody there, trying trying trying, but just not closing the gap down. When I had not managed to get back on before they started descending one of the drags, I eased off and rode steady until the bunch came along and could get had some shelter, or so I thought. The bunch must have decided to start chasing or something, because as we went up the hill through Annaclone, I slipped further and further back until I was the last wheel and just about managed to hang on until we started descending again and I could recover a little. But not for long, another few kilometers later into the 4th lap I couldn't hold the wheel and was dropped on one of the drags. I rode endurance and was happy when Ryan finally came along with a few of the A1s and I hung on to them for a while, happy that they were riding less surgy than the A3s. Then I was dropped again in the last lap, when Ryan decided to speed up a hill and I rode endurance to the finish mostly by myself. That was definitely a shock to the system if I ever know one, with over 10min spent in my anaerobic heart rate zone (my powertap is being serviced at the moment).

Well, I was truly shattered after this race and went for a sleep for an hour and a half after. But at least with Ryan's new podium legs, I had really good recovery, to be ready for the Trader's Cup on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the weather on Sunday wasn't as nice, with a nasty rain greeting us on the way to the start. Over 15 girls and about three over-50 guys were in my group. We had 3 laps of a 17km course and started steady. My legs were still tired from the race the day before, so I had decided to go easy all day and save my legs for the sprint - a tactic I had not tried before! There were many attacks along the way, but nothing got away. Not partaking in the action, it felt like a nice light endurance ride for most of it, interspersed with a couple of accelerations. I actually hoped for a break to get away that I could bridge across to, because I knew that any attempts of me to get away by myself from the group would be chased down immediately. In the final lap then Black Rose racer Sara Ortiz went, I bridged across hoping we could start a little breakaway group. Sandra Fitzgerald and Amy Brice also bridged across and I thought we had a good move, but the bunch chased us down before we could get properly organized. I knew I only had one more match to burn, and I actually wanted it to come down to a bunch sprint - I have not really tried bunch sprinting much. I knew the road would be wide and there should be enough space not to get boxed in. And with a 3 sec peak power of 1050Watts, I should be strong enough to outsprint most of the girls in my group. Well, on the way towards the finish line, with about 200m to go, our last remaining over 50s guy started sprinting and I stayed on his wheel, set up for the perfect sprint. About 100 meters before the line I pulled out from his unintentional lead-out and really kicked up my speed, crossing the line about 2 bike lengths before the next rider. The actual sprint was so short, it didn't even start burning. Wow, that must have been the easiest way of winning a bike race. I was previously told that I am not a sprinter, and I've generally stayed out of the heat of sprinting to the line. But my power numbers and the fact that Ryan even finds it hard to beat me in a sprint are showing the opposite. I can climb, but I am not a natural climber. I am not light enough to be a true mountain goat. My physique is much more that of a sprinter than a climber (actually more of a time trialist), I just never used that potential! I never really knew where to be or how to set myself up for a sprint or when to actually start sprinting, but I've been having a bit more of a look into it lately with Ryan performing lead-outs for me in training, and seeing how easy and painless it is to win a race purely on the final sprint, I am hoping for more races to end in bunch sprints now! While previously I would have animated the race with countless attacks, not wanting it to come down to a bunch sprint, only to be chased down by the bunch and tiring myself out, I now understand those girls I used to give out about, those that never do any work and just sit in all day saving the legs for the final sprint.... :)

The official report of the Trader's Cup race can be found on stickybottle, irishcycling and womenscycling.

Finally, racing season has started!

For some reason this year it felt like I was waiting forever for the first race of the season to start. The first race of the season is always long awaited and is usually a bit of a nerve-wrecking affair. In the past 3 years I tested myself against the best in the world in the Cyprus Sunshine Cup for the season opener and when I returned to Ireland it was all about who has had the better winter of training, Cait or I, leading to another high-pressured first home race.

Since I was not going to Cyprus this year (look at cyclingnews for report of the first race there and the high caliber of racers it has attracted because it's an Olympic year), I needed to find another race to let the pressure off. So it was great that Niall Davis from Biking.ie organized Round 1 of the Biking Blitz Series in Ballinastoe Forest, a forest within riding distance from my home - perfect!

Not only would the course be suitable to me at this stage as it's all man-made trail center singletrack and fireroad and thus doesn't contain any nasty surprises but it would also be a nice, gentle start into the racing season. I had ridden my (training) mountain bike once this year in January which ended in a broken rear hanger and as such has been gathering dust as I'm waiting for the new rear hanger to arrive and I've been doing all of my training on the road bike or on the turbo trainer in the last while. So I took out my racing bike on Saturday, the day before the race to do a practice ride around Ballinastoe, just to see if the bike still works and if I still knew how to ride a mountain bike. It would also be a gentle season opener, as Cait, my biggest competitor here in Ireland, has deserted the Irish MTB scene, having followed the call of the Swiss Alps and moved to Zurich. At least this meant I didn't have to go into the red zone like last year in our first race after winter training.

I really enjoyed this well-run race, loving to push hard but not having to kill myself. Unfortunately the months of hibernation had messed with my brakes and I eventually lost all of my front braking power and some of my rear brake in the first lap, having to take it slow enough on the otherwise super fast descents, which wasn't that much fun. Both came back to some extent later on, so that on the 2nd lap I could really enjoy these descents at speed. I knew I should have bled them after the pre-ride!

It was good to get the first race out of the system in this fun way. Now I'm looking forward to the rest of it!

My excursion into track cycling...

Like that colour!

... was unfortunately short-lived. But I'll start at the beginning:

After my decent performance in the Ras na mBan and the news that I turned Irish, I was approached by the Cunga track team to "test" as a rider for the women's team pursuit. There already was a full team of Irish riders, i.e. 3 riders, that were trying to qualify for the London Olympics next year: Caroline Ryan, Ciara Horne and Sinead Jennings, but their situation was that if any one of them was put out due to injury or sickness, their chances for qualification would be destroyed. Thus, to strengthen the set-up, they were always on the look out for extra riders that could become part of the team and help towards Olympic qualification. And so it was that on a very short notice I joined the girls on their pre-European champs track camp in Newport, Wales, UK (the closest track to me as there is not (yet!) one in Dublin).

Thankfully, I did not have to invest into a track bike right then, and I got a lend of one of theirs, so it was easy to just turn up to Newport. There are frequent and cheap flights to Bristol with Ryanair (less frequent and less cheap to Cardiff with Aer lingus), from where the public transport connection to Newport is also good and frequent (airport bus and then train). But on my first trip I got a lift with the team's coach, Brian Nugent (who in his main job is the Irish Paracycling track coach, at which he has been very successful) and arrived at "track team camp central", better known as the Newport Central Travelodge (right across from Newport train station and near to a Tesco and Starbucks and the main Newport bus station, very convenient).

The next morning it was straight onto the track. I was a little bit intimidated and nervous as I've never been on a proper track before (I did a one-day introductory track session on Sundrive track, Dublin's outdoor concrete track on a crappy old rental track bike), so I had a bit of an idea of what to expect, but in no way it compared to what a real proper wooden indoor track is like, especially not on a much better track bike.

Not being used to riding a fixie, the first challenge was to get going and clipped in on one. You either clip in holding onto the railing or manage to clip in while the pedals are turning..... The next challenge was to get onto the track. Oh my god, it was even steeper than I had imagined! I think I almost got a heart attack just riding on the Cote d'Azure (the blue bit that's not even the track proper) and was ecstatic when I dared to make it up onto the black line and around. In no time I was brought up by the very patient resident track coach Chris Davis (who probably had already lost all hope of me as a future track rider at that stage) onto the next line up, the red line. Oh my god - I kinda lost all hope right then. Let's say I was just happy to be off the track again and having even floor under my feet. I was so afraid that I would slide down the track!

The Newport track

Luckily for me there was a short break and I could get onto the track completely by myself, riding around as I liked without endangering any of the other riders that probably wondered who was riding around like a complete fool. Anyhow, I have to say that this time on the track by myself helped me so much, I went completely crazy, riding slaloms up and down the track like a snake and ventured up to the very top so that in the end I was able to ride even to the most steepest bit of the track at the highest point! Wohoo!

But to think that this would be the only fear I had to conquer that day was too early. Next my track bike was equipped with proper team pursuit bars - you know, the type one uses on TT bikes. Apart from a 5min stint on Ryan's TT bike at home before, I have never ridden TT bars - let alone on a fixie around a steep track! Again my heart rate soared when I transitioned from the outside bars onto the TT extension bits (I'm sure there's a proper name for these things too). At least now I wasn't afraid of riding the black line any more. I learned a few technical things about pursuit line and position on the bike, looking into the corners etc. and had a few laps around the track, doing up and over changes too.

So I had conquered the fixie, the steepness of the track and the TT bars, but my last fear to conquer was to get closer to the riders in front of me. And while I was inching closer each time out on the track, I was still very scared to trust the person in front. I know, the person in front also does not have breaks and thus cannot come to a sudden stop, and thus my fear of riding into him/her was mostly irrational, but I just couldn't let go and get closer. Well, another day for that I thought.

The second day I was meant to try and hang on with the girls (talking about jumping in the deep end) but couldn't - they were flying!!! - but mainly also because again I just couldn't get close enough onto their wheel to get the full advantage of the draft. With a final session on how to do a standing start I had learned all the basics needed for team pursuit. In the afternoon I watched the girls do some bunch racing with the Vets while I wondered what I had got myself in for....

Lucky for me I could combine this trip with some family time and I made my way over to Swansea to visit my little sister and my brother in law where we spent a short night and watched the Wales vs. Ireland (Wales won) and then the England vs. France (France won) rugby games in the morning before taking a train back to Bristol and flying home.

Back in Ireland I thought about this opportunity of supporting the track team and decided to go for it. Such a chance seldom comes your way and it would be a dream come true. The chance for Olympic qualification for the team would be so tight that there would be many stages on the way that would decide if they are still in the running for an Olympic spot, so every race would count and I knew that this adventure could be over for me before it even started, I was just hoping that the decision either way would be obvious! After some serious talks with my husband and my supervisor we came to a solution on how I could work around the finances and time investment (since I'm still a full-time PhD student) and so I signed up for the next track camp.

In the mean-time the girls had finished 7th in the European champs, a decent result, but not quite indicative of the improvement that they have undoubtedly made since they've started training for this season.

Inching closer :)

After a few days visiting my family in Germany (this is off-season, the only time I am not bound by strict training and eating regimes!), a few hours back in Ireland (the night Dublin got flooded) to see our apartment block and car park under water and therefore a very short night I was back on my way to the airport again heading to the Newport track for a second time.

The 2nd time round was a lot less scary. Getting onto the bike and onto the track was fine, this time no nervousness was involved. I had a nice morning session with Chris and rode with the group on the track, returning to watch the evening races as I was too tired to race myself. Then the next three days I did some of the same training as the girls, watching them do their efforts, trying out Caroline's super cool TT bars (more expensive than I thought was ever possible - and I thought I was used to the cost of high end equipment), trying to hang on to them in their efforts (without much luck, dying after about a kilometer - after 4 weeks of off-season my legs just didn't want to follow). On the last day I also learned how to do standing starts out of the machine and was happy that my start times were fast enough to be able to slot in with the girls. Personally, my greatest achievement was when we did our final effort, with all of us doing a half a lap each and I was happy to be able to do a good change-over (in my opinion) - at that moment I knew I had taken the right decision to do this! It just felt so good how it all came together in this effort for us. Then, in the evening I did the Vet session, which included a lot of riding around in circles (as you do on a track) with a large group, with some pursuiting work and a final 10mile TT. This one finally felt like a real work-out after the very short but full-out pursuit and standing start efforts.

Now it was just time to go back to Ireland to actual training after the off-season and to wait and see how the girls would do in the first of four World Cups. There are only 6 events (Continental Champs, 4 World Cups, World Champs) in this qualification period, and for the girls to have a chance every world cup would count as they urgently needed those points. I tentatively booked my flight for the next track camp that would be on just after the girls' first world cup in in Astana, Kazakhstan, hoping the girls would do well.

On the day of the competition I was crossing both my fingers and my toes and my eyes for the girls to do well - they had to come at least 7th to realistically stay in contention. Excitedly I followed the live-timing and live-twitter feeds, but huh, what is that? The girls are down as DNF??? After some waiting, exchange of text messages and some more waiting there was clarity, the girls had DNF'd after a puncture (and a false start before that, thus using up their two allowed starts).

This meant the girls were most effectively out of reach for a spot for London (bar some highly unlikely scenarios). I was sad, because I really started enjoying the track cycling and it was a very exciting and interesting experience, but I can only imagine what a blow it must have been for the girls who had already invested so much of their time, money and energy into this adventure (here's a link to Ciara Horne's blog recounting the scenes of the event).

Given the same situation I would take the chance again in an instant. As I was only very shortly involved with the track team, it was all gain and very little loss for me (a bit of money spent and time lost on PhD), so all in all a great experience. And who knows - maybe I'll give track a proper try at a later stage... :)

I am still cycling!

There's been a yawning absence of posts recently, I know. I even have a list of unwritten race reports about races that happened long ago that I am meant to catch up on, such as my experience of the London Olympics test event and the Czech and Italian World Cups, which were all a lot of fun.

I have been cycling since and there's been a lot of cycling related adventures: I've had a stint in track cycling (there's an unfinished post somewhere in the pipeline), I've been cycling in California, while there I raced and won the Hamilton Low Key Hill Climb again (thus again breaking the female Strava record), gone mountain biking with Klaus, gotten a Retul bikefit and ridden the beautiful roads of California (I love California).

MTBing in California

But, I'm also a student, and right now writing code takes priority to writing blog posts. On the upside, training is going well, I am on a recovery week now and I'm looking forward to a nice Xmas. Not looking forward to training in this freezing cold weather though!

My first real CX race

After my excursion into track cycling had come to such a sudden end and I was not going to be going to Newport to another track camp, I was eager to do something else that weekend. Ryan was doing 2 CX races, one in Corkagh Park in Dublin and one in Moira, Ulster and I so wanted to do one too! The problem is that I don't have a track bike (my college stipend doesn't extend to biking equipment....), but Morty was so nice to lend me his bike for the Sunday race in Moira.

I watched the end of the Saturday CX race in Corkagh Park (Ryan came 3rd!) under blue skies and was hoping for the same weather and a dry course in Moira, for starters. I was not disappointed, on another blue skied day (is this really Ireland) Ryan and I made our way up to Moira and signed up for the senior race. Although the sky was blue and the sun was beaming down, the course in the park was surprisingly muddy and slippery. But no problem for Ryan's Schwalbe tires that I was using on Morty's bike. After two practice laps I was ready to go.


The advice I was given was basically to go full out from the start, and so I did. We had 9 laps to go and after about 3 laps I felt I was running out of steam, but I kept the pressure on. After my 4th lap I was lapped by a flying Roger Aiken, so I knew Ryan couldn't be far either. But he never came along - Ryan had snapped his rear mech! Either way I knew it could be tight to not be lapped TWICE, so I kept the pressure on, really enjoying sliding around the slippery corners and cutting through ankle deep mud and grass. I came down once in a slight off-camber corner, but it was more of a comical moment rather than a real crash at my slow speed. I had fun catching all the people that came into my sight and made up more and more places each lap. Unfortunately I kept loosing a few places again each time I came to the boards and my very non-elegant technique of getting over them cost me dearly, so that I had to chase back on and overtake those people each time again. In the end I had worked my way up from 25th position in my first lap to 16th in my last. Not bad for my first CX race!

Thanks to Morty for giving me a lend of his nice CX bike!

Full results are online here.

Reports on www.UlsterCyclocross.com and www.Stickybottle.com.