Camper Club Road Trip: Castlebar

Hello everyone, arrived home from Castlebar, Co.Mayo last night at roughly 5.30ish. What an eventful weekend! Unfortunately for me I didn't manage to have the best of luck. We arrived Friday night just to chill out so Dion & David wouldn't be wrecked on Saturday morning.

Saturday I planned on doing Stage 4 of the 2010 Junior Tour but, the unthinkable happened, I got lost! Doesn't happen very often but when it does it's not nice. I had the route details and map on the stem and somehow I still managed to get lost. Amazing! I knew that roughly 5km into the spin I had to turn left and go over some train tracks. So thats what I did and it was the wrong left. Turns out the left I was meant to take was a further few hundred metres up the road. I knew when I turned left I should meet train tracks straight away and I did, so I thought I was on the right road. So next on the map was a left at a T-Junction. When I took the left I realised I was going back into Castlebar after doing only 11km! So then I turned around and went back and took the right and the T-Junction (Went straight through) on the road to Ballinrobe. I basically got the whole spin messed up, but I still managed to get a decent ride in. For the rest of the day I just relaxed and listened in on some talks for the lads.

Then, Sunday I also planned on doing a stage from the Junior tour which I felt I knew a lot better. Stage 6. But on the previous day they were short of leaders in the groups and I had a feeling I'd be asked. And I was. I was a leader in the u16 "A" group, so as we rolled out of Castlebar we just started to get going at 40km/h+ when "bang" I was on the ground. There was a touch of wheels which was no surprise as the speed was fluctuating like a yo-yo. It wasn't the nicest thing to happen in the first few km's of the spin but I got up and got on with it. I was motor paced at speeds of 55km/h back onto the group. When me and Dylan got back on straight away we started to ride up and over. After a few km's of this the group was nearly halfed which made it a lot safer. Still dodgy, may I say! The rest of the spin was grand, was a bit stiff and sore but the worst thing was my hand, I took a chunk of skin out of it and couldn't put any pressure on the bars which was pretty annoying! Other than all that the spin was good, some talented u16's up there and that really showed in the last 10km.

Now I don't want to go on forever but I'll leave ye with some pic's.

This Pic of Limerick tunnel is for Reilly!

Now, next weekend the "Camper Club" will be going on tour again going to Tralee for the Lacey Cup. Hopefully I'll be recovered enough to race properly. Can't wait! More to come soon, stay tuned!

Eoin