The racing year started well for the club with John Doris 3rd in M 50 National Cyclo Cross Championships in January in Sligo. It also finished well with Danny Mc Dermott getting 5th place last week in the Cycling Ireland Zwift racing League.
In between these events, in early March just ahead of the 1st Covid lock down, the club had the honour of having a member, Fintan Ryan, qualify for the Tokyo Olympics as part of the 3-man Madison and Omnium selection. The games have been postponed to July 2021 and our information is that the qualification and selection will remain unchanged.
Fintan also had 2 wins in the Mondello series during July and was 2nd in the Leinster Road Race Championships in August.
The IVCA Road Race League did not go ahead after the initial relaxing of restrictions in July. This was a disappointment to a number of our members with Paul Cullinan, Andy Kavanagh, Billy Burke, Mark McGarry, Roy Bowden, Mark Prendergast and George O Rourke regular and enthusiastic representatives of the club in these events.
The Club Road Race League and Championships were affected by the first Covid restrictions in mid-March.
We were unable to commence the League on its normal start date in early in April.
When restrictions were eased in July the committee made a decision to go ahead with the first 3 events as time trials as these did not involve groups of riders riding together. As it became clear that group racing was permitted handicap (Competitor Pace) events were added.
At the outset it was not clear how many events we would be able to run. Our priority was to ensure that our racing members would get as much racing as possible and with this in mind we included all the championships in the League but on a handicap basis for the league result. Eight events were run between early July and early September. Our only hitch in all of these was the movement of a flock of sheep on the course of the 25mile TT/L2!
Unfortunately, we were unable to run the club road race championship due to a combination of the availability of circuits, key members and the introduction of Level 3 restrictions.
The Club League had 19 participants. The most popular event was League 4/10mile TT Championship on July 30 with 15 riders participating. The least popular event was L 7 23km CP on 27th August with 7 participants. The 2020 Club League was won by Alan McNamee 55pts, with Dave Peelo 2nd 53pts and Roy Bowden 3rd 50pts.
Club Championship Results:
25mile TT 1st Paul Cullinan 1.04.34, 2nd Dave Peelo 1.04.57, 3rd Mark Prendergast 1.06.41
Women 1st Cathy Mc Cormack 1.13.36, 2nd Jackie Mc Namee 1.19.23
10mile TT 1st Fintan Ryan 21.10, 2nd Paul Cullinan 23.51, 3rd Dave Peelo 23.53
Women 1st Cathy Mc Cormack 27.25, 2nd Suzanne White 29.26, 3rd Eileen O Sullivan 34.33
Hill Climb 1st Dave Peelo 3.31 2nd Paul Cullinan 3.41 3rd Aidan Ryan 3.58
Women 1st Suzanne White 4.27, 2nd Jackie Mc Namee 5.36
In organising these events along with George O Rourke, Paul O Donoghue, Patrick Bradshaw and Dave Peelo it was uplifting to have the support of so many non – participants each Thursday evening who turned up to offer their services to marshal. I would like to say a special thanks to Aine McCarthy, Paul Murray, Karl Thomas, Michael Wildes, Joanne O Shea, Stephen Healy and Gillian Peelo. Without their effort, commitment and good humour, organising and running our club races under difficult circumstance would not have been possible. They are true heroes of our club!
The Club organised and ran the Danny O Shea TT in July 15th on the Jack Whites to Beehive and back course
There were 60 entrants and 55 took part on the day. Jack Caldwell of Strada3Velo Revolution won with a time of 20 min 40.5sec. Second place was Greg Swinand Dan Morrissey MIG Paticmo in 20min 41.17sec Third place was Kieran Regan St Tiernan’s CC with 20 min 46.93 sec.
The first woman was Mia Griffin Illi Bikes 23min 18.5sec
In Second place was Maura Claffey UCD 23min 38.32sec and in third was Jenifer Bates with 23min 46.25 sec
We had 3 of our own members take part: Fintan Ryan 4th place with 21min 02.29sec, Andy Kavanagh 29th 23min 57.96sec and Paul Cullinan 30th 24min 01.63sec
Again, a huge debt of thanks is owed to all those who helped out on the day. The support was fantastic and enabled us to run a safe event efficient event. Several riders came to me afterwards to thank the club for running the event and expressing their appreciation of our efforts and organisation.
Aidan Ryan
Racing Committee
Touring
A mild winter was an excellent beginning to our year with the Chairman’s Tour in early January kicking off a year to remember or never forgotten, perhaps.
This seemed like the year run on What’s app and Zoom from Mid-March until mid-summer but the club spirit was not to be beaten and despite a spring of discontent we had a great summer once we got the wheels going again.
This year we saw a good number of new faces who added to the great camaraderie in the club joining in on our weekend spins and a few even trying their hand at racing, great talent showing to be nurtured.
The spring training groups under the direction of Aidan Ryan and Dave Peelo were strong throughout the programme until the road block of Covid 19 stopped us in March. However most riders kept going during lockdown although the 2km restriction did limit proceedings.
The Saturday and Sunday tours got back going in mid-June with all groups leaving The Grove although with some timing alterations which seemed to work well.
The annual Roubaix spin fell victim to the lockdown in April and despite a re-scheduled date in October was unable to run due to the worsening situation in France, hopefully on Sunday 11th April 2021 we will get another chance.
A very strong summer for both Saturday and Sunday touring helped by fair weather and the generosity of the various leaders keeping the ship afloat. The groups had good numbers up into the double digits most Sunday’s throughout the year and with some imaginative destinations (sunrise spin for the summer solstice) (thanks POD) and tours like the Mini Mick Byrne (thanks Aidan) kept everyone being challenged weekly. The fitness levels were high as we progressed with 50/80kms average on Sunday groups with great results during the racing season culminating with a great overall and deserved win for Alan MacNamee in the Club League .
The introduction of level 3 in Dublin during September led to the riders in that county running local tours with up to 5 groups taking to the roads each weekend, huge thanks to Aidan, Eileen, Margaret and Stephen for their endless enthusiasm, especially on What’s App!
The introduction of the 7G challenge this year became more than an up-hill struggle logistically so perhaps the chairman will keep it in the fridge until next spring, it could be another shot in the arm…
The addition of gravel and MTB tours with Karl Thomas over the last couple of winters has added a new fun dimension to our calendar and was before lockdown a regular…thanks to Karl and with a bit of luck we will get a few more going soon.
Keep the legs moving, looking forward to seeing you back on the road soon (many in new kit) and as always, stay safe.
Patrick Bradshaw
Touring Secretary
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