Lenny, Alek and Rob's cyclo crossbromance

nak

Alek wrote: »

Q for those who raced in previous editions of Tymon Park FIXX: what's the mud like there? Wet/runny or rather a peanut butter nightmare?

I'm contemplating the tyre choice.

I recall people stopping during the race to pull the mud and grass off their bikes a few years back due to clogging around the brakes.

Tenzor07

Alek wrote: »

Q for those who raced in previous editions of Tymon Park FIXX: what's the mud like there? Wet/runny or rather a peanut butter nightmare? I'm contemplating the tyre choice.

Should be nice and mushy for the A race after 120 B and lady racers have been through there...

fat bloke

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Should be nice and mushy for the A race after lady racers have been through there...

You callin' them fat? :mad:

Peterx

https://www.strava.com/activities/212010505

Last year's lap, if you zoom in you can see the spiral of confusion in all it's glory.

If you plan it out on your practice lap you will find there are plenty of corners and turns and dips for recovery. If you know where these are you can look forward to them and bury yourself coming up to them too.
It's a good lap, the starting straight into the first muddy right hander is a bit scary as you can get lots of speed up in the full knowledge that 56 other people are also gunning for that mythical clean line through the sloppy wide right hander.
It's worth practicing your dismount and remount for the boards, loads of places can be gained here with a fluid efficient traverse.
Don't mentally drift off on that long straight beside the outer fence, keep pushing here and lads magically start coming back to you, as they drift off into a more comfortable and less painful place.
Go slower into the inner spiral then you think and you will cycle better out of it, it gets very tight in the middle.

TL;DR - learn the lap, note rest points, keep pushing on all other parts of lap

I'm looking forward to it

DirkVoodoo

Peterx wrote: »

https://www.strava.com/activities/212010505

Last year's lap, if you zoom in you can see the spiral of confusion in all it's glory.

If you plan it out...

Any tips for that drop Peter? It was my first race last year and I couldn't quite convince myself to ride down it...but looking back at video it didn't seem that steep.

I presume the usual "weight back, lay off the front brake, don't think about the tree" applies?

Alek

Should be nice and mushy for the A race after 120 B and lady racers have been through there...

Great!




What a relief I got a B entry from a boardsie :pac:

lukegjpotter

Alek wrote: »

I think I'll leave Ralphs on my racing hoops then, but take the inferior wheelset with Mud Wrestlers just in case.

The Mud Wrestlers were pretty good last night, in my mud fest. They shed the muck really quickly.

You can see their threads were the cleanest part of the bike last night.

https://www.instagram.com/p/9_10JxSF5n/

Peterx

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Any tips for that drop Peter? It was my first race last year and I couldn't quite convince myself to ride down it...but looking back at video it didn't seem that steep.

I presume the usual "weight back, lay off the front brake, don't think about the tree" applies?

Ehhh I'm no expert but how about this:

Assume it's easy. As corny as that sounds it really does help to assume you can ride it. Don't call it a drop, call it "the section after the spiral" or something.

Make sure your hands are on the drops, scrub your speed coming into it, look at the exit (not at your front wheel) and smoothly dip into and out of it.

On the first practice lap don't even worry about making the turn, just focus on the dropping in smoothly, hands on drops, feathering brakes. Then the next practice think about having your left foot in the down position to ease the bike into the right hand turn?

As an aside the new Coillte trail up on 3 rock (Euroskeptic on Strava) is brilliant for practicing the cornering and dipping on the CX bike.

The tax man

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Any tips for that drop Peter? It was my first race last year and I couldn't quite convince myself to ride down it...but looking back at video it didn't seem that steep.

I presume the usual "weight back, lay off the front brake, don't think about the tree" applies?

I tried it during the week, came off the bike.( sort of) I'll now have a mental block about it on Sunday. Not sure what the drop was like last year but theres a dirty big step in it now.

Alek

I hate drops. Always imagining fork snapping and the following face transplant

The tax man

Alek wrote: »

I hate drops. Always imagining fork snapping and the following face transplant

Not a fan myself. Even back in the day on a MTB I hated steep drops.

Peterx

sweet Grud on a greenie.........

Do not listen to them Dirk. it's Easy, just keep saying it - and practice it

fat bloke

Hmmm. I'm mildly outraged that my faux outrage was ignored:pac:.

Of what is this drop ye speak? Chr1st if this rain continues we'll be swimming around the park.:( <sigh> it had to happen I suppose. We've been spoilt by all this unseasonable mild dryness thus far.

daragh_

Too much thinking!!! Don't overthink it (I ALWAYS overthink it!)

If the rider in front of you can do it so can you.

But if you have to run it don't stress. Might be faster if there is a bottleneck the first time around. I'll be hopping off if that happens. Then you can all shout at me when I struggle to hop back on and block the trail

The tax man

fat bloke wrote: »

Hmmm. I'm mildly outraged that my faux outrage was ignored:pac:.

Of what is this drop ye speak? Chr1st if this rain continues we'll be swimming around the park.:( <sigh> it had to happen I suppose. We've been spoilt by all this unseasonable mild dryness thus far.

The muddier the better.

Tenzor07

The tax man wrote: »

The muddier the better.

Then you're gonna like this!


KilMuddery

lennymc

Anyone got directions for tomorrow?

Lusk_Doyle

lennymc wrote: »

Anyone got directions for tomorrow?

Follow the bikes in front of you. Should be easy as they will all be ahead of you! Even RobFowl!

lukegjpotter

lennymc wrote: »

Anyone got directions for tomorrow?

They're on the page with the race, or just type "Tymon Road" into Google Maps.
https://goo.gl/maps/aPoerajhasN2

Craig06

Well tomorrow is gonna be super interesting as there's no let up in the rain at all

fat bloke

Late to bed = pish poor preparation. It's windy out too. Nice and mild though.

Mmmm... Warm mud bath

lennymc

unfortunately mrs lenny is not feeling the best today so I have to bravely stay at home.

wav1

lennymc wrote: »

unfortunately mrs lenny is not feeling the best today so I have to bravely stay at home.

We are a very friendly club.We can organise someone to keep an eye on her if you ''really''want to go LOL

lennymc

thanks wav1. I'll say that to her

Beasty

Just watching the World Cup event on Eurosport. Must be good training for triathletes as they probably put nearly as much effort in running as there do on their bikes

This discipline seems to have grown enormously in recent years, both domestically and internationally. Anyone know if there is a proper national "strategy" on CX? Think it's the remit of the Off-Road commission, but I don't see much about sending teams to international events for example (although I do see that individuals race overseas occasionally)

Is this something that CI need to invest a little more (time and possible money-wise) into given the popularity of CX amongst its members, or are they already on top of this?

fat bloke

Jaysus, that was good craic.
I think I was running 5th or 6th coming into the last lap but I fcuked up that little innocuous kerb coming onto the finish straight and hopped the back wheel off it, puncturing the rear. Had to rim it all the way around for the last lap and must have lost 5 places at least. Would have been chuffed with a top ten

Feckin tubeless my arse, I thought I was puncture proof!!

wav1

Beasty wrote: »

Just watching the World Cup event on Eurosport. Must be good training for triathletes as they probably put nearly as much effort in running as there do on their bikes

This discipline seems to have grown enormously in recent years, both domestically and internationally. Anyone know if there is a proper national "strategy" on CX? Think it's the remit of the Off-Road commission, but I don't see much about sending teams to international events for example (although I do see that individuals race overseas occasionally)

Is this something that CI need to invest a little more (time and possible money-wise) into given the popularity of CX amongst its members, or are they already on top of this?

Agreed.Memory tells me that a group of riders [Irish] rode an event in UK last year and got no funding from CI for their efforts.Francine Meehan was looking to ride womens worlds and that got the thumbs down also,afaik.Dont know if it would be remit of off road or high performance?Sport has grown bug time here in last few years,but on continental Europe I would think its always been that way.Back in the 70s[Uncle Albert time] RogerDe Vlemick used to go between winning classic road races to worlds cyclo cross champs.

The tax man

Great fun today. Think I just spent longer cleaning my bike than racing today.

Thanks to the advice of "not thinking about" that drop, just went for it while practicing and it just got easier as the day went on.

Alek

After 1st lap I was maybe 5th or 6th, then lost at least 10 places due to lack of confidence in the woods.... At 1st lap tried to ride down the drop and went straight into bushes - so have been running it for the remaining laps, to the booing of spectators and other riders Need to apply more rule #5 I guess.

Anyway, great mucky race it was!


Oh, and racing ralphs are NOT muddy tyres at the end. I bet there was 4kgs of mud on them and the rest of my bike at the finish.

The tax man

Found the Rons good today. Had no cornering issues all day. Even able to make a few spots in the spiral and other twisty sections. That goo in the trees was going to stick to everything.

The tyres were carrying some extra baggage coming back to the start\finish line but I rode through the standing water on the path and it cleaned them out nicely.