Ras 2011

michaelm

Got my first year class to undertake a project to decorate a number of old/scrapped bikes to place along the route of the Rás into Portumna (stage finish on Sunday). While we were up against the clock and working with limited resources we had great fun and at least everyone in the town now knows the Rás is coming on Sunday. I have placed pics of a few of them here

rochefan

michaelm wrote: »

Got my first year class to undertake a project to decorate a number of old/scrapped bikes to place along the route of the Rás into Portumna (stage finish on Sunday). While we were up against the clock and working with limited resources we had great fun and at least everyone in the town now knows the Rás is coming on Sunday. I have placed pics of a few of them here

Brilliant

michaelm

Looks like it is going to be very tough going for the first 2 days at least, the wind speed and direction could hardly be much worse. Will be interesting to see the affect on the race schedule.

Nice promo video by An Post/Sean Kelly here

ednwireland

at least they are heading south



live text feed here

http://www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/art_5617.shtml

Beasty

Dean Downing of Rapha Condor wins the first stage from Sam Bennett

snollup

Any tv coverage this year?

xz

judging by the finishing time, that was an average speed of just under 39km/h, that's some going given the wind conditions today:eek:

michaelm

Some pics from the finish:

www.flickr.com/photos/mmolamphy

snollup

@michaelm, you have some really fantastic pictures on you flicker account.

Lusk Doyle

Beasty wrote: »

Dean Downing of Rapha Condor wins the first stage from Sam Bennett

Hey moderator, where is the bleedin spoiler you're always ****e-ing on about?!?

Beasty

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

Hey moderator, where is the bleedin spoiler you're always ****e-ing on about?!?

When's the delayed coverage?

EDIT - we didn't use them last year, but if you want them this year we can oblige (it just tends to irritate people having to look through the spoiler "shield", and as there is certainly no live coverage there's very little point in having stage specific threads) - oh and we didn't use tham for the RAI either;)

Lusk Doyle

Something on at 8 pm on rte tomorrow I think

Beasty

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

Something on at 8 pm on rte tomorrow I think

That's great, but in terms of spoilers they only tend to be used until midnight on the day of the stage. However if posters want them to be included, as I said we could oblige

sy

snollup wrote: »

@michaelm, you have some really fantastic pictures on you flicker account.

+1 on that. Some fab shots. Thanks

Lusk Doyle

No bother beasty. Just thought I'd take it to the man for the craic!

Diarmuid

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

Something on at 8 pm on rte tomorrow I think

Nope. RTE 1 next Monday, after the whole race is over.

buffalo

Ryan's Examiner piece for the day: http://sport.irishexaminer.com/post/2011/05/22/Drama-aplenty-on-opening-day-of-the-Ras.aspx

buffalo

Was just reading this: http://www.irishprocycling.com/news/post/downing-edges-out-bennett-win-ras-opener (SPOILERS!)

But could someone explain how the GC is different to the Stage results? Were there time bonuses available throughout? For sprints/KoM?

jimbobaloobob

Yes time bonuses available through the stage

HurlyBurly

What was with the stop/restart near the end cos of a crash. Why did the commisaire need to restart it? If you fall you fall, tough. Ruined the finish of the stage if u ask me

Quigs Snr

The crash was about 40 riders back. Around 130 riders stuck behind it, road completely blocked. Tough call for the commisaire really, most races would not be stopped but maybe they were just being cautious after the horror crash last year, or perhaps they just didn't want a bunch of riders to lose huge amounts of time on day one and try keep the race exciting for the week. An unfortunate situation, I bet the guys who were shelled out the back and got back on during the pause werent complaining !

ednwireland

HurlyBurly wrote: »

What was with the stop/restart near the end cos of a crash. Why did the commisaire need to restart it? If you fall you fall, tough. Ruined the finish of the stage if u ask me

from
http://sport.irishexaminer.com/post/2011/05/22/Drama-aplenty-on-opening-day-of-the-Ras.aspx

From there out, it was mostly plain sailing until a large crash occurred with seven kilometres to go.


Bodies piled on bodies – I think the mass of riders almost reached two meters.

I was one of the last to fall and fortunately didn't suffer any damage.

mihgt have something to do with it

conamara

Daily highlights from this years RAS -

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/video/27162/

vertigo1976

I was at the finish yesterday in Portumna. Got chatting to a few locals before the finish who predicted the crash half an hour before it happened.. Apparently the road works at the bridge where the crash occured were an accident waiting to happen...

superlav

Sounds like carnage today.

http://www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/art_5621.shtml

nomadic

Average speed 32km/hr with the main bunch over 13 mins down at the moment, sounds like proper carnage alright.

00833827

nomadic wrote: »

Average speed 32km/hr with the main bunch over 13 mins down at the moment, sounds like proper carnage alright.

thats good news for the county riders trying to survive for the week, a day at training pace will mean a lot to their legs come end of week

nomadic

00833827 wrote: »

thats good news for the county riders trying to survive for the week, a day at training pace will mean a lot to their legs come end of week

I'd say its anything but training pace into that wind.

michaelm

vertigo1976 wrote: »

I was at the finish yesterday in Portumna. Got chatting to a few locals before the finish who predicted the crash half an hour before it happened.. Apparently the road works at the bridge where the crash occured were an accident waiting to happen...

Just for the record the accident happened about 4km before the bridge. But you are correct - everyone was expecting an accident there.

vertigo1976

@michaelm: Thanks for that... shows how inaccurate the bush telegraph can be! There were a few damaged and bloodied bodies at the finish after that pile up. Pity it couldn't have been avoided.

Captain Havoc

Here in Kilrush, we tried to do a good cycle today but with this phenominal wind we ended up doing 35km and called it a day. We've been told the ETA is 15h50, with this wind I can't see how a breakaway could work.

Lucifer-0

Hey is the Ras televised at all?

ktz84

Hightlights only on Monday 30 at 8pm

http://www.rte.ie/sport/sportontv.html

Captain Havoc

uploaded photos to my flickr account, search for CaptainHavoc, photos are dodgey.

EDIT: Direct link

The Crunch

Lucifer-0 wrote: »

Hey is the Ras televised at all?

This will help get you to Monday.

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/video/27162/

byebye

watched the race myself today in lahinch. the wind was unreal!! hard to stand up straight!! fair play to all the riders!

dave2pvd

The Crunch wrote: »

This will help get you to Monday.

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/video/27162/

From the finish line footage, Dean Downing didn't look like he was legal in the sprint. HUGE pull to the left with ~150m to go.

Beasty

Ryan's verbal report from Stage 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N47TTd2ZVU8

RobFowl

Todays stage was savage.
Head-Winds from the start and it broke up slowly , painfully and with large times gaps.
At one stage into a head wind the bunch was doing less than 18kph!!
Some tired bodies floating about..

superlav

Stage 2 report from Ryan Sherlock

http://sport.irishexaminer.com/post/2011/05/23/Any-hope-of-a-high-placing-ended-for-over-100-riders-I-was-one.aspx

conamara

Stage 2 Highlights -

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/video/27297/

Beasty

Today's Shane Stokes update stream

Seems to be plenty of action again

Beasty

Ryan's Stage 2 video report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVgUmcVeh7M

Raam

I like his reports. I wish they were longer.

oflahero

Raam wrote: »

I like his reports. I wish they were longer.

Sounded like he was interrupted towards the end by the vampires knocking on the door...

emtroche

Great to see my former team-mate Derek Finnegan in the break!
Hopefully they can hang on to the finish!

Beasty

Stage 3 result and overall standings:

Stage 3, Kilrush – Castleisland:

1, Nikolay Mihaylov(France AVC Aix en Provence) 4 hours 13 mins 50 secs
2, Oleksandr Sheydyk(Ukraine ISD-Lampre Continental) same time
3, Peter Williams(Britain Motorpoint) at 15 secs
4, Marcel Barth(Germany Thuringer Energie)
5, Floris Goesinnen(Australia Drapac Cycling)
6, Gediminas Bagdonas(Belgium An Post Sean Kelly)
7, Salvador Guardiola(Greece KTM Murica)
8, Aaron Gate(New Zealand National Team)
9, Simon Richardson(Britain Sigma Specialized Team)
10, James McCallum(Britain Rapha Condor Sharp) all same time

General classification:

1, Gediminas Bagdonas(Belgium An Post Sean Kelly) 12 hours 56 mins 16 secs
2, Oleksandr Sheydyk(Ukraine ISD-Lampre Continental) at 1 min 16 secs
3, Nikolay Mihaylov(France AVC Aix en Provence) same time
4, Peter Williams(Britain Motorpoint) at 1 min 27 secs
5, Simon Richardson(Britain Sigma Specialized Team) at 1 min 31 secs
6, Aaron Gate(New Zealand National Team)
7, Floris Goesinnen(Australia Drapac Cycling) both same time
8, Shane Archbold(New Zealand National Team) at 2 mins 17 secs
9, Stuart Shaw(Australia Drapac Cycling) at 2 mins 21 secs
10, Anatoliy Pakhtusov(Ukraine ISD-Lampre Continental) same time

Points: Bagdonas
Mountains: Guardiola

Beached

Was at the Top of the Crag climb today for the ras.. Good position as the race passed twice from different directions. I took a few photos with my phone but the quality wasn't great.

Today really struck me how international the race has become. The main escape group had very few irish or county riders involved. And it seemed to be a race of two peletons. The headwind is probably not helping the county riders though.

Good day all the same, there was a presentation at the end for a Dublin Cyclist who was completing his 25th Ras in 27 years. Didnt get his name though. Roll on the Healy pass tomorrow

Hail 2 Da Thief

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJa5htd5wQ

redmaxi

Beached wrote: »

Roll on the Healy pass tomorrow

I might head down to the pass on the bike (motorised wan) tomorrow. Any idea what time the road closes, re opens ?