Race Around Ireland 2017

cython

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

It's a pity that the 99'ers time is wrong on the tracker. Hard to figure out how close they are. Going through the last checkpoint, it was a dead heat with them and Tiernans, both having the exact same average speed, but you can't see that on blackblox.

They look to have about a 5km advantage at the moment, which equates at the averages involved to being about 10 mins, or maybe a little more. They also have a 3 minute head start, so in reality their lead is probably about 7 minutes. You could probably easily get their actual average by taking the distance and adding 3 mins to the equivalent Tiernans time. Traffic patterns on the N3 when each team cross could even be a factor at this rate - I remember driving behind a cyclist last year who was going nuts at a slight delay there (to be fair, the team won their category so he was concerned about the lead), and his nearest competition were nowhere near this close!

CramCycle

+30kmph avg for the 4 person team winners

velo.2010

I was out at lunchtime today between Kilcock and Clane and saw several supported riders within a few minutes of each other. Took me a moment but then realised it was the RAI.

I'm guessing what I saw was a mix of 2 and 4 person teams and solo's? If they were all 4-man teams then it was fairly tight between them.

cython

velo.2010 wrote: »

I was out at lunchtime today between Kilcock and Clane and saw several supported riders within a few minutes of each other. Took me a moment but then realised it was the RAI.

I'm guessing what I saw was a mix of 2 and 4 person teams and solo's? If they were all 4-man teams then it was fairly tight between them.

Must have been all 4-person teams, the 2 man teams are both still in Munster, and the soloist Ultras wouldn't have come that road. Solo RAI competitors are further behind the first 2-person team, and the leading 8 person team is still in Wicklow.

To be fair, 2nd, 3rd and 4th (on the road, at least) teams in the 4-person were all within 5 km of each other for the last ages (1st was maybe 30km or so ahead of them again), so if you saw one there's a good chance you saw most/all of those!

WhatsGoingOn2

cython wrote: »

They look to have about a 5km advantage at the moment, which equates at the averages involved to being about 10 mins, or maybe a little more. They also have a 3 minute head start, so in reality their lead is probably about 7 minutes. You could probably easily get their actual average by taking the distance and adding 3 mins to the equivalent Tiernans time. Traffic patterns on the N3 when each team cross could even be a factor at this rate - I remember driving behind a cyclist last year who was going nuts at a slight delay there (to be fair, the team won their category so he was concerned about the lead), and his nearest competition were nowhere near this close!

The 99'ers have a penalty, so looking like second for Tiernans

WhatsGoingOn2

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

The 99'ers have a penalty, so looking like second for Tiernans

Will be exceptionally tight for 3rd between 99'ers and the Velaroos

cython

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

Will be exceptionally tight for 3rd between 99'ers and the Velaroos

It won't be. Veloroos had a 24 minute head start over 99ers, so even if they crossed at the same time, 99ers had them beat (penalty and all), and they are still back the road. The race for 2nd is still on though!

wanderer 22

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

cython wrote: »

They look to have about a 5km advantage at the moment, which equates at the averages involved to being about 10 mins, or maybe a little more. They also have a 3 minute head start, so in reality their lead is probably about 7 minutes. You could probably easily get their actual average by taking the distance and adding 3 mins to the equivalent Tiernans time. Traffic patterns on the N3 when each team cross could even be a factor at this rate - I remember driving behind a cyclist last year who was going nuts at a slight delay there (to be fair, the team won their category so he was concerned about the lead), and his nearest competition were nowhere near this close!

The 99'ers have a penalty, so looking like second for Tiernans

There's at least two boardsies on tiernans, go on the lads!

cython

Chapeau to the lads from Tiernans!

RAI wrote:

Roll of the drums... Results in!
🥈2nd St Tiernans, 72 hours, 21 minutes. 30.60 kph
🥉3rd The Ninety Niners - RAI 2017. 72 hours, 27 minutes (includes 15 minutes time penalty). 30.56 kph.
4th overall The Veloroos in a new Women's record speed of 30.42kmh, 72hrs 47mins.

Very costly penalty for the Ninety Niners

Vizzy

I went out last night to cheer the first 4 teams on.

I was tracking them up to about 12.30pm and was in awe at the speed that Aspect, in particular were clocking.
Their rider came down a hill between Mount Mellary and Newcastle and he was hitting 72kmph at one stage, at about 10.30pm. :eek:.Jesus, I wouldn't do it in the car in the middle of the day.
When he passed me near Clonmel he was clocking 42kph on a flat section!!.

The next 3 teams passed about an hour later and they were all flying also.
At that stage there was 4 seconds between 2nd and 3rd and about 20 seconds between 3rd and 4th, having adjusted for "time on the road".
Phenomenal achievement and racing after about 1800 km of cycling.

Hopefully, I will see the first 2 man team about 5pm today.

irishrover99

colm18 wrote: »

There's at least two boardsies on tiernans, go on the lads!

If Tiernan's win this, i'm never doing the Evil with Daragh again.
You'll never hear the end of it.

ford2600

irishrover99 wrote: »

If Tiernan's win this, i'm never doing the Evil with Daragh again.
You'll never hear the end of it.

It is a really fantastic achievement to ride that distance at that pace. Really enjoyed the dot watching last night.

Riding it 4 person, sounds really hard and wouldn't suit too many; given the distance most racing guys would go "fcuk that" and most audax guys would probably find it too fast.

Great event, I'll try and get out and give the solo guys and lady a shout somewhere in the Knockmealdowns

daragh_

That was epic. Anyone want to buy a bike?

DaithiMC

This was a great edition of the race - the competition was closer again than last year and pushed the riders even harder. I was in the Follow car for STCC on Mount Mellary and it was some of the best racing and craic I've had being involved in a cycling event. At night the rules don't allow the Follow Car to leave the rider so if you overtake you need to be sure you can get the car around safely and hold the lead. You could imagine that up a hill that, in parts is not wide enough for two cars, can be a challenge! The Veloroos' rider had a chain drop so we got ahead at that point. It was so intense HQ got involved with phone calls to each of the teams to "advise" that we'd better play by the rules! Sobeing on the phone to HQ, radio to the rider, rider getting p'd off they couldn't race, there was tension all over the place. Happily everyone made it out of there safely and we got to laugh at it with the other teams the next day.

Gets better each year.

cython

DaithiMC wrote: »

This was a great edition of the race - the competition was closer again than last year and pushed the riders even harder. I was in the Follow car for STCC on Mount Mellary and it was some of the best racing and craic I've had being involved in a cycling event. At night the rules don't allow the Follow Car to leave the rider so if you overtake you need to be sure you can get the car around safely and hold the lead. You could imagine that up a hill that, in parts is not wide enough for two cars, can be a challenge! The Veloroos' rider had a chain drop so we got ahead at that point. It was so intense HQ got involved with phone calls to each of the teams to "advise" that we'd better play by the rules! Sobeing on the phone to HQ, radio to the rider, rider getting p'd off they couldn't race, there was tension all over the place. Happily everyone made it out of there safely and we got to laugh at it with the other teams the next day.

Gets better each year.

That sounds like a tough situation alright! I drove that section on a practice run a couple of years ago, and narrow doesn't do that road justice. Ye were tit for tat with the Veloroos for a hell of a long time.

After crewing the last 2 years I have to say I was surprised how much I missed the experience while dot-watching. That may have been evident from my back of the envelope calculations earlier in the thread, probably a habit from having to do similar to reassure our surviving cyclist last year (Odd Ball Joes; one of the lads was brought to hospital from Slieve Mann) on the way from Wicklow to Moynalty that he wasn't going to be caught by the nearest 2 man team - ye were orders of magnitude closer to each other, mind!

cython

Incidentally, does anyone know what happened that Dan Fallon (recumbent rider) seemed to head for home before even hitting Donegal? Would have thought/hoped he'd get a bit further along than that having travelled all the way over from the US for it.

DaithiMC

cython wrote: »

Incidentally, does anyone know what happened that Dan Fallon (recumbent rider) seemed to head for home before even hitting Donegal? Would have thought/hoped he'd get a bit further along than that having travelled all the way over from the US for it.

My understanding was that he went off in a section that was one of the route changes and it was a while before it was noticed and he was corrected. The apparent speed increase people noticed was likely him being put in the car to rejoin the route. I'm not sure this is all the reason, ie, he gave up when he realised how far he was off or if there was some other reason too.

cython

DaithiMC wrote: »

My understanding was that he went off in a section that was one of the route changes and it was a while before it was noticed and he was corrected. The apparent speed increase people noticed was likely him being put in the car to rejoin the route. I'm not sure this is all the reason, ie, he gave up when he realised how far he was off or if there was some other reason too.

Ah. A couple of us did see him miss a turn around Scarva at one point (he was basically in Tandragee before they turned around), and to be honest while he was definitely brought back up the road, it looked a bit like instead of turning on to Station Road (per the race route) and then heading into Scarva, that he may have taken the more northerly (but more main road) turn off the A27 (i.e. the first one they found coming back). It ends up in the same place and it's metres in the difference, but strictly speaking would be a deviation from the route, so was wondering if it was that one or something similar that came to light down the road - perhaps it was from the way you're describing it.

ford2600

Nicole Reist
Speed 19,17 kph
Distance 2.153,8 km
Time 112:21:27

First cyclist home. New record for ladies solo.


7 other solo riders, still out on the road with between 200km-400km to ride.

Pat Doocey is outside the time limit but is still riding. Got to meet him in Clonmel, in good spirits. Hopefully he can make Meath sometime tomorrow.

daragh_

ford2600 wrote: »

Nicole Reist
Speed 19,17 kph
Distance 2.153,8 km
Time 112:21:27

Incredible stuff. To just finish the RAI solo takes so much, to win like Nicole you have to be superhuman. I'm in awe.

ford2600

daragh_ wrote: »

Incredible stuff. To just finish the RAI solo takes so much, to win like Nicole you have to be superhuman. I'm in awe.

I was thinking the same of ye a few nights ago!

It is some ride from her, nice bit faster than the Brazilian lady two years ago and the other swiss lady last year. She is RAAM champion so not a surprise I suppose.

Numbers are so low it is hard to know with any ultra stuff, but I wonder is it a sport where there is no need from male/female categories. In long distance swimming beyond about 10 miles women generally have an advantage physically. The strongest sea swimmer where I used to swim was a lady, and that was among a crew where there was Channel swimmers.

Her time is a long way of Strasser (but he is just a complete once in a generation freak of nature 250W for 24hrs...) but faster the Jim Fitzpatrick/Joe Barr(actually Barr was faster but not by much)/one of Bernard Pauls rides. Hard to know, but if more women rode we might have a better idea

It's a pity there isn't more ladies riding audax

CramCycle

ford2600 wrote: »

It's a pity there isn't more ladies riding audax

NamelessPhil covers enough miles annually to cover all Irish men and women, to the point where no one else needs to go out on a bike anymore.

Charlie69

Hi all, I was lucky enough to be part of the 4 person winning team.. Team Aspect from Co.Kilkenny.

It was the toughest test of mental and physical endurance I've ever experienced but also the most rewarding.

We four cyclists buried ourselves for four days and led the race from gun to tape but believe me the winning of the race around Ireland is all about the crew and in my opinion we had the best crew in the history of this race.

We cyclists had to concentrate only on riding our bikes as everything else from navigation,strategy,nutrition etc.. was left to our magnificent crew and they executed with a professionalism that Team Sky can only dream about.

Well done to all who completed this race in whatever capacity you may have participated .

NamelessPhil

You called?

As regards male/female categories, that's one of the reasons I like Audax events, there is just you and a time limit. If you're 18 or 78, male or female, it doesn't matter you just have to get round in the time allowed.

As regards gender ability and long distance, apparently women are at their endurance peak in their 40s. There have been studies in marathon events that show that the most consistent performers are female. I'll try and dig out a reference.

BTW I do very little mileage annually. If I look at my Strava feed I'm only on 4,700km so far this year and 1,400km of that was LEL.

daragh_

Charlie69 wrote: »

Hi all, I was lucky enough to be part of the 4 person winning team.. Team Aspect from Co.Kilkenny.

It was the toughest test of mental and physical endurance I've ever experienced but also the most rewarding.

We four cyclists buried ourselves for four days and led the race from gun to tape but believe me the winning of the race around Ireland is all about the crew and in my opinion we had the best crew in the history of this race.

We cyclists had to concentrate only on riding our bikes as everything else from navigation,strategy,nutrition etc.. was left to our magnificent crew and they executed with a professionalism that Team Sky can only dream about.

Well done to all who completed this race in whatever capacity you may have participated .

That was a savage ride by you guys. We chased you the whole way around and never really got within striking distance. You drilled it from the gun and didn't make one slip-up from what I could see. Kudos to your crew for that - it's a tough gig and they did you proud. Well done and congratulations on a superb win.

We (STCC) were blessed with a very experienced crew - most of whom had been involved in our 2 previous attempts. It takes real strength of character to calmly negotiate all the things that the RAI can throw at you, while dealing with 4 smelly prima-donnas in Lycra.

Charlie69

daragh_ wrote: »

That was a savage ride by you guys. We chased you the whole way around and never really got within striking distance. You drilled it from the gun and didn't make one slip-up from what I could see. Kudos to your crew for that - it's a tough gig and they did you proud. Well done and congratulations on a superb win.

We (STCC) were blessed with a very experienced crew - most of whom had been involved in our 2 previous attempts. It takes real strength of character to calmly negotiate all the things that the RAI can throw at you, while dealing with 4 smelly prima-donnas in Lycra.

Thanks Darragh, our game plan was to get away to a fast start and try to maintain our lead.

We avgd almost 39kmh to the first timing station which was great but as you say our crew never put a foot wrong for four days which really made all the difference.

It was my debut on the RAI but the majority of our crew and the other three cyclists had all been involved with team Teac Tom last year and they were certain they knew what changes were needed for a successful outcome this time around... how right they were.

daragh_

Charlie69 wrote: »

Thanks Darragh, our game plan was to get away to a fast start and try to maintain our lead.

We avgd almost 39kmh to the first timing station which was great but as you say our crew never put a foot wrong for four days which really made all the difference.

It was my debut on the RAI but the majority of our crew and the other three cyclists had all been involved with team Teac Tom last year and they were certain they knew what changes were needed for a successful outcome this time around... how right they were.

Your TTT tactic was brilliant - I suspect you'll get a lot of imitators next year.:D
That was my 3rd RAI and it was the hardest by far. Staying within sight of the
The Ninety Niners and the Veloroos really upped the pace. We really had to dig deep! Think I'm retiring now.

NamelessPhil

daragh_ wrote: »

Think I'm retiring now.

Unless you want to be crew for an Ultra attempt?

daragh_

NamelessPhil wrote: »

Unless you want to be crew for an Ultra attempt?

In like Flynn!

DaithiMC

Dan Fallon's report. https://www.facebook.com/groups/racearoundirelandforum/permalink/488125488191205/