Dia duit, Hello, Hola and Bonjour!
See that we've gone multi lingual! Flash huh!
Sorry for the delay in last weeks update but sure Tuesdays are boring anyway so hopefully this will cheer you all up!
Another huge week in the Club and the season is really kicking off now, so much so I can barely keep up with the goings on in the club and these updates are getting harder and harder to research.
All this researching though does show what a great state our club is in with really truly active members on all levels.
This week saw the return of the Lanza crew on Wednesday but not before they clocked in some more miles before hitting the plan and coming home to face the music.
Barry McMahon has not been seen since returning as apparently he blunted all his wife’s leg razors before leaving the previous week and is now in full grovel mode!
The Lads also decieded it would be funny to Leave Johnny Finn behind in a bit of a cruel joke having slipped out quietly on Johnny after he had made them attend a strange cinematic presentation of his collection of 80's sports jackets.
This week lots of members have been hitting big numbers on solo spins with too many to mention but some really impressive spins if you have a look through Strava.
The leader board this week is no surprise as usual the Mileage monsters John Sharky and Derry Cadogan have been hovering up road and sit on top of the leader board with huge miles followed closely by John Lynch who got in massive miles while on the “Training” trip to lanza.
Even more impressive if you check out John’s stats and the other Lanza boys was their climbing stats.
Huge numbers over the two weeks with John posting 8665m in climbing on the trip in the 6 days! Some one must have told them there was pints up them hills!
Well done Lads.
Club groups went out Thursday and Saturday this week lead by Frankie Froome Cashman and Paudie Murphy, as usual a good group out on these days with high paced spins.
Sunday saw the graduation spin for the Beginners and the 8.30 Coffee group decided to meet up with them in Ardmore for a huge club spin of nearly 50 riders coming back from Ardmore together.
The Coffee group spin was around 90km with a good pace maintained down to Ardmore, although a lengthy stop for a puncture did mean we had to cut short the mileage in order to make sure we met up with the Beginners in Ardmore.
The Spin from the main road into Ardmore was particularly fun with a pace of 37kmph averaged into town with Yours truly and Tosh sat on the front to make it a real rare occasion! One of us on the front is rare but both at the same time! I know I know you don’t believe it but it happened I swear! Those that were there will be talking about it for years! But don’t worry normal service resumed of me hiding on the way home, Tosh however took more extreme measures!
While we waited for the Beginners group to arrive into Ardmore a few of us decided to let Brendan Hennessy take us on a little site seeing trip down to the beach across lets just say marginal roads! This did unfortunately put pay to Tosh’s day who after another blow out had to call for a collection! Maybe being on the front with me previously was just too much for him? The view however from Brendan’s magical mystery tour was spectacular and worth the climb.
On the way back we stayed together as a huge group to the main road then split with a portion of the beginners coming along with the Coffee group up and over the bypass. There was a decent headwind at times on the way back and all the beginners certainly deserved the term graduation with them not looking out of place. Certainly the people I spoke to and rode alongside were really trucking, David White, Anita and Manus and Aiden Crowley all more than holding their own and I’m sure they can now move onto the Coffee spin if they wanted. Apologies to anyone I didn't mention but there was a lot of new names to remember so I didn't get them all. Well done to everyone on the Beginners spins over the last 8 weeks, its been really pleasing to see the group maintain its size and enthusiasm and I’m loving the name you've developed for your spin from now on “The Picnic Spin”.
Sunday saw racing take place up in Limerick and plenty of Mctc members in attendance. Strong cross winds proved tough conditions with a really high pace being set and plenty of crashes reported. Even finishing this race in tact was an achievement.
Shane Fuller, Lee Palmer, Dominic and Martin Cashman, Leonard Okeeffe ,(Osbourne meats McCarthy cycles) were all racing ,Sean Hughes was still out with a chest infection but will be back soon.
Dominic and Lee were both racing in the A4 Group, Lee was dropped along with plenty of others from the main bunch on the 1st lap of 3 when the bunch turned left on to the main road to Caherconlish and were met with a very strong cross wind which split the peloton.
Lee put in a great effort to chase with a group of about 10 or so and all though they didn't get back on Lee cycled away from them in the last km to the finish to take the sprint from his group. Well done Lee.
Dominic kept with the bunch but got caught up behind a crash were a fella cycled head on in to a car and there was body's all over the ground.
In the A3 race Shane and Leonard lost contact with the main group on Lap 1 of 4 at the same corner that Lee got caught out on , Shane chased back on for 10k finally getting back on just before Caherconlish where the climb began for around 2 km.
After a tough effort to get back Shane got dropped again at the top of the climb and chased for the next 25km full throttle getting in amongst the team cars and within 50 yards of the main group before the main peloton ramped up the pace for the finish leaving Shane to finish the race with a small group just behind. Shane’s Comment “never so wreaked after a cycle” showed what a tough day it was.
Leonard was not feeling the best after a long week of hard training and according to Shane his van looked too tempting as he passed it after falling off the main pack on the tough Caherconlish corner.
Martin finished in the A1 A2 race in the bunch his team leader Paudie o Brian 2nd Having yet again having been looked after by Martin all day. The best result though was all came home injury free which was lucky ,Shane tells me he saw 3 crashes in this race and afterwards it was like a scene from causality, broken collarbones and bandages everywhere. Tim Mahony has apparently capitalised on this information and is now running dado painting lessons for large groups soon.
Ok I know none of you know what i’m talking about there but to a select few thats pretty funny so just go with it!
Well done to all the guys Racing, its great getting the updates from Shane. Keep up the good work.
Ballycotton 10 was Sunday and we had plenty of participants Will Rock, Gary Neff , James Cronin and Brian Shanahan and I’m sure others but your all too shy to let me know so sorry I missed you off. Will and Gary both finished in around 1hr and 8 mins and James in 1hr16 with Brian a little further back but not much. Well done to all Mctc members that raced.
As the summer is going on with so much happening it is going to become impossible to call out all of you for the great runs, swims and cycles you do so I will be looking for volunteers to write up reports on races and spins etc that you do so we can make sure we keep the club up to date and give out deserved credit. As you've all seen Catalina has done a great job with the blog on the beginners spin and Shane fuller sends me great reports on the races. So if anyone else wants to write up reports on races they do Like the Ballycotton 10 please get in touch with me via the Social page on facebook and we will get reports posted on here.
Have a good week and be safe.
