Ras na mBan - 2018 edition - 5th to 9th September

Beasty · 09-09-2018 3:56pm

And it's over for another year

Winner of today's stage - Iris Sachet (DN17 Nouvelle Aquitaine)

Best British Rider - Megan Barker (Team GB)

Best Irish Team - VC Eriu

Best Team overall - Team GB

Best Young rider - Megan Barker (Team GB)

Best Irish rider - Maeve Gallagher (Team Verge Sports)

Queen of Hills - Nikki Juniper (TC Racing)

Points - Iris Sachet - (DN17 Nouvelle Aquitaine)

and overall winner - Coralie Demay (Team Breizh Ladies)

Well done to all the riders, but in particular to the organisers who faced additional challenges this year following the withdrawal of An Post as title sponsor. Plans are to return to Kilkenny next year, and hopefully it can continue to get bigger and better

Bri981 · 09-09-2018 4:02pm

Highlights of Stage 2,3, and 5 from the last few days

Stage 2:https://www.facebook.com/athywheelers/videos/259943391524010/
Stage 3:https://www.facebook.com/athywheelers/videos/2084921664885965/
Stage 5 :https://www.facebook.com/athywheelers/videos/248169379220810/

Inquitus · 09-09-2018 4:33pm

Beasty wrote: »

And it's over for another year

Winner of today's stage - Iris Sachet (DN17 Nouvelle Aquitaine)

Best British Rider - Megan Barker (Team GB)

Best Irish Team - VC Eriu

Best Team overall - Team GB

Best Young rider - Megan Barker (Team GB)

Best Irish rider - Maeve Gallagher (Team Verge Sports)

Queen of Hills - Nikki Juniper (TC Racing)

Points - Iris Sachet - (DN17 Nouvelle Aquitaine)

and overall winner - Coralie Demay (Team Breizh Ladies)

Well done to all the riders, but in particular to the organisers who faced additional challenges this year following the withdrawal of An Post as title sponsor. Plans are to return to Kilkenny next year, and hopefully it can continue to get bigger and better

Demay win it by the 2 seconds she had on Juniper after the TT? (I noticed Juniper is no spring chicken, she'd qualify to be an Irish IVCA Vet!)

Beasty · 09-09-2018 4:47pm

Inquitus wrote: »

Demay win it by the 2 seconds she had on Juniper after the TT? (I noticed Juniper is no spring chicken, she'd qualify to be an Irish IVCA Vet!)

Not seen the full Stage 6 results, but yes I think it was just that 2s in it

Juniper had guaranteed the QOH title on Friday (assuming she completed the event). She went into the finals stage with the Points jersey, but was overtaken by stage winner Sachet

In last night's crit Juniper was at or pretty close to the front throughout, taking the first intermediate sprint (sponsored by a sports glasses business, so she got a pair of them rather than a pair of seconds!). She seemed to be there or thereabouts throughout the competition. Indeed speaking to her yesterday she was very surprised only to lose 4s in the TT - it was hilly which must have suited her given her climbing ability, but I guess I have to agree on the spring chicken comment (although if you look closely you will notice one person in that video of Stage 5 posted who is positively ancient)

Inquitus · 09-09-2018 5:15pm

It seems an excellent Race, I see on the IVCA items for discussion at the AGM, is removing Sponsorship of CI events such as this, in a tit for tat due to their failure to recognise our racing license, I understand the reasoning behind this and really do believe our licenses should be recognised, but it would be sad if this excellent race were to suffer due to internal Irish Cycling squabbles!

Beasty · 09-09-2018 6:13pm

The race is already struggling with An Post having pulled out this year. This is the last year of the National Dairy Council's sponsorship. That's a loss of the GC and Points jersey sponsors. The IVCA sponsor the QOH jersey. If they lose that sponsor as well it would be a massive blow

That proposal is being put forward by one member of the IVCA. I really hope it fails. There are quite a number of IVCA members who help out with the Ras na mBan and I hope they can persuade the organisation to reject this proposal