Race Day 15: Frank O' Rourke Memorial

Hello, today I raced "a part of" the Frank O' Rourke Mem. in Camaross, Co.Wexford. Going into the race I felt good, legs were good, everything was good apart from my sinuses - It was just down to a bit of good luck. I guess it wasn't meant to be today..

The race started alright nothing too fast and no doubt people were attacking from the gun. For a lot of the cross-winded section of the course I was out on my own chasing a lone leader who attacked from kilometre zero. When nobody came across I knew what I was in for, another race where people just chase, then stop, chase, then stop (One of the most frustrating things that can happen in bike racing). When we hit the main road the speed increased due to a tailwind and on the drags it started to line out and being near the front I was hoping for a split, but whenever people get on a split nobody rides properly, everyone just follows the guy who attacked and won't ride around - If your not willing to ride, why follow an attack? or even go near the front?

After the main road we took a U-turn and headed back towards the start/finish. It was like we hit a wall when we went from the tailwind to headwind and everyone started to get bunched up as the speed slowed so much. This is where I started to feel a little uncomfortable as there was a lot of guys coming around which left me stuck tight to the ditch. As soon as I got a little space I attacked again - looked back after a few seconds to see a massive line of riders following, nothing was happening!

Literally a minute or 2 later, after roughly 19km, I heard a bit of arguing going on behind and when I saw this guy flying up and wiping out a couple riders I knew who was being told off! *Smash* - I was in a ditch! Only 3 riders came down and I was lucky enough to be one of them. Lying in the ditch with my head in my hands, I was gutted! I am not hurt, not even a scratch. All I got was a bit of a bang and sore knee. I got away lucky, very lucky! More importantly - my bike, one scratch on my rim and a small tear in the tyre. I think the way I smashed over the bodies and bikes infront of me saved my bike and me, whereas if I hit the brakes I could have been hit from behind which usually causes damage! But hey, however gutted I was - that's racing!

After I got back to the camper, I started to think more and more about the crash. Me being my superstitious self, came up with a solution! My Belgian "SockGuy" socks. When putting them on this morning I started to think about all the bad luck I had while wearing them, punctures, crashes etc.. and now I have another to add to that list! The socks are getting the bin, Fact!

So that wraps up my update of the Frank O' Rourke since there wasn't much to report on for myself, but my brothers and cousin had a good day. Jack was 4th u12, Dion 2nd u14 and David 2nd u16 well done lads. Stay tuned over the next few days for another news round-up!

Eoin

News, News, News! (Really getting stuck for names)

Hello everyone, time for an update before the race this weekend. Since last weekend I've been super busy trying to organize things. So if I don't get this update written now, the one on Sunday or Monday will be long and there's a big possibility I'll be super busy next week too!

Last Tuesday night I rode the local "Hennessy Cycles-Summer League". Since I won it the year before I was excited to get racing it again. The question I keep getting asked is - "Are you out to defend your title?" the answer - "No". The win came last year as a bonus. League races aren't something I sit down at the start of the year and aim to win, or even do well in, the main aim is to try and hurt myself and everyone else - and if you win, fair enough. So Tuesday, as soon as we got going I started to ride hard along with a few others and kept doing it throughout the 5 laps! I basically tore the legs off myself riding through and threw in a few attacks just to hurt myself more, but no luck in getting away! I ended up in the front group but just rode in and didn't contest. It's not the hardest of races to "sit-in" but you sure can make it difficult for yourself if you want, and to be fair, that was one of the fastest Fermoy league races I've been in! Not sure what average speeds we did, but this week we caught the first handicap group after a lap and a half and the week before 2 u16's riders stayed away. So that just shows..

Over the past few days I've been talking to the guys at Prendas Ciclismo, A clothing bike store which has been running in England with 15 years. Big thank you to them for all the support and quality accessories they provided me with. Over the years they have provided top pro's such as: Brad Wiggins, Dan Lloyd, Dan Martin, Matt Brammeier, Peter Kennaugh and many more with accessory clothing.. Their service was fantastic and I'd definitely recommend them for anyone looking to purchase accessories and more. Really great guys! I'll definitely be going back for more.

Can't wait to use these!

Thursday night, I raced the "St. Finbarr's Summer League" in Cork. In the morning I got a solid session in so I didn't have the freshest of legs going up to the race, but I didn't worry as all of the "Ras" riders wouldn't be there to smash it! (Although the average speed was still 25mph+) The conditions were very windy. Especially out the back of the course! As soon as the race started I tried an attack but didn't get too far. It was a very jumpy race but 99% of the time nobody lasted due to the strong headwinds. I tried to get away a few times throughout the race but no luck, I got hauled back every time! With 2 laps to go I had a bit of mechanical difficulty. When changing gears they weren't slipping into the cassette as they should and as I got out of the saddle the chain jumped, and so did I! A few hundreds meters after the jump, on the roughest section of road the chain dropped. Don't ask how, because I'm still trying to figure it out. With only 2 laps to go and the strong winds there was no hope I was going to get back on, so I rode to the line to watch the finish! I wasn't too bothered really as it's only a league race and it was almost over, better happen now than Sunday eh?

As I mention it, Sunday I'll be racing the "Frank O'Rourke Memorial" in Wexford. I did this race last year and ended up 7th, so I'm looking forward to having another go at it. I like the course and if theres good weather and no winds everything should be great! Fingers crossed.. 

Finish - Frank O'Rourke Mem. 2010

I've changed the title of my blog to "Eoin McCarthy - Driven".

Should have another post up either Sunday or Monday, until then..

Stay Tuned, E

No racing this weekend!

Hello everyone, since last weekend I think it's fair to say I've had a pretty solid weeks training. Nice 3 day block mid-week and nice rides over the weekend as I had no racing! So lets get this started..

As I said the week consisted of a solid 3 day block. Don't want to give too many details (wink, wink) but I'll tell ye about Thursday! Thursday was "Sport's Day" in school, so I decided to give it a skip and get in some training instead. It wasn't even about the training but more about keeping injury free. Just can't risk it! In the morning I went for an easy ride with Dave and raced the "St. Finbarr's" league that night in Cork. The race went well, got in the break pretty much from the start. Don't even know how it got away but I guess I was just in the right place at the right time (Pity it's not the same on Sundays!). For the rest of the race roughly 8 of us worked well and I think I ended up 6th, although the result isn't really important, the main thing is I got some good training in, solid day! Some shots of the retro Fermoy kit I wore Thursday night (Sorry for the bad quality) :

 

My back has come around and everything is ok, my body is in decent condition and I'm super happy about this as getting an injury at this time of year would be a disaster! Happy days.

The rest of the week was uneventful. With a nice rides today and yesterday, no fun stories to tell this time unfortunately. But I did manage to purchase a new pair of wheels for my upcoming adventures. Finally putting my SuperValu money to some use! Here they are, the 2011 Mavic Kysirium SL's

I'll be honest. I DO have more news, I know I've been saying this in the last few posts but I'm going to hold back on it for the moment, otherwise I'll have nothing to write about when it comes around! So the plan for the up coming week is, race Tuesday, race Thursday, race Sunday! Fun, fun, and more fun. Excuse any bad grammar. Stay tuned!

E

Race Day 14: Ken O' Keefe Memorial

Yesterday we all traveled to Whitechurch, Cork which isn't too far from home. When I say we all I mean, My dad, Dion, Jack and myself. Going to the race I wasn't too sure how it was going to go, the reason being the hard TT I did on Saturday but no matter how it went it was going to be a good training session! The course is a pretty lumpy one with a 3km drag up to the finish and it gradually gets steeper before you do a U-turn and go downhill along a lumpy road for 6 or 7km, then another turn onto a secondary road with good surfacing and back to the 3km drag, and to make things worse - there was a headwind! Before getting ready for my race my dad and I got the boys ready for their racing. I gave Dion the race tactics to the best I could ,and did he do me proud! Coming around after the first lap there was around 5 away and he was sitting in 2nd position going over the top of the climb. After the U-turn, he attacked and soloed to victory about a minute ahead, to take his first open race win ever! And yes, he is only 12! Jack however, finished in 9th place and was happy with his day's racing. He is enjoying it more and more every time!

Legend!

Now, onto my race. Before my race I was getting ready and seemed to strain a muscle in my back, didn't want to make a big deal of it as people may think I was making excuses but I genuinely was not! I tried to cycle around a bit and hoped it would loosen out, but no luck.

My Dad rubbed some Deep heat into the area in pain to hope it would ease the pain and it did, for a while! 

When the race began attacks were going almost straight away, like always. But, like always, they were brought back time after time. After a few km's a break got away of around 8 or so riders, At the beginning it didn't look like it would stay away but as soon as it started to look promising I attacked across just at the start of the drag up to the finish line. When I got across the group split and 5 of us got a gap. For the next lap the 5 of us rode pretty hard but got no luck getting caught just about a kilometre from the line. 

After getting caught, I sat in the bunch to try and recover. Typically, this is when the main break of the day started to form. This is also when my back started to give a bit of trouble, getting out of the saddle was very sore and I tried to avoid it as much as possible but when attacks are going and there are a few punchy climbs it's hard to stay in the saddle. Throughout the day small groups were going off the front and I was very much a part of most of them. On the 5th lap, of the 7 lap race, we began to see the breakaway and the gap was coming down. Of course, I wasn't chasing as I had 2 team-mates in the first group, just following anyone else who was willing to chase. On the 6th lap a group of 7 or so went away in pursuit of the break-away and when the moment came, I attacked across and probably couldn't have timed it better! After turning onto the main road on the way to the finish we could see the break but with only 4 riders working we were never going to catch them, even though the gap was only 25 seconds. I rode in with this group and didn't contest the sprint, which left me in 13th position.

I was happy enough with my performance and felt strong throughout, but I think if I didn't make it into that group it would be a different story! 13th isn't all that bad.

Now, the "back" situation. After the race it seemed to get worse and worse as the night went on. I had to go to physio today and get it checked out just to make sure everything is ok. Wouldn't be convenient to get an injury at this time of the year, as I have a big few months ahead! 

Anyway, I don't want to keep ye reading forever, because if your still reading by now your probably thinking - "Whens this going to end?" well here it is. Stay tuned!

Eoin

Euro's selection TT

Hello everyone, so the past week has been a tough one for everybody. With the passing of my team-mate John Brady's wife Sophie affecting everyone at the club, I'd just like to send my condolences to the Brady family and John if you read this. May she rest in peace. Also the terrible accident in the Giro which resulted in Wouter Weylandt's life been taken, which affected the larger scale of cyclists around the world. On Monday, descending on the Passo del Bocco Wouter crashed and suffered fatal injuries to his head. I think pretty much everyone worldwide has heard about the accident so I dont want to write all about it. Still, days on, the horrific images still run through my head and my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this time, as well as the Brady's. RIP Sophie & Wouter.

RIP WOUTER WEYLANDT

As of late, I've been taking it easier (training-wise), recharging a bit. These few weeks of the year seem to be the only ones I'll get to take easier. With big plans in the coming weeks and the Junior Tour only 6 weeks away, I won't have any time to recover properly so I decided to use the past week as a sort of taper week and I also got a lot of stuff sorted. So nothing too interesting happened!

Today, Saturday, I traveled to Dublin to compete in a Selection TT for the European Championships, which are in July. This TT was a Squad event and no TT bikes, bars, helmets etc. were allowed to be used. Sign-on was at the Emmaus Centre in Swords, and that was the meeting place for minor talks and the roll-out. We all rolled out around 11.30ish to have a look at the course and get a good feel for the conditions. The course (8km) was a pretty bumpy one with not many flat sections. People may argue but to me there was elevation on the main road, maybe not as bad as the "Long Gaul" (or "Naul" not exactly sure) but to me it felt like elevation! Without a great warmup I headed out for my TT, straight away I could feel the effects of not having a warmup done and the cross/ head winds on this section didn't help either! Once we turned off the main road after roughly 4km and a strong wind was straight in our face. At this point I was already feeling like muck, and we hadn't even reached the climb! Don't know what was up with me today, but as soon as I turned off that road its almost as if my body had ran out of energy, my arms, legs and chest were all feeling terrible and I haven't felt that way in a while. Anyway, want to wrap this up soon so lets just say the climb to the finish wasn't too pleasant, about 3km in length and pretty steep in parts! After the TT I got cleaned up and headed back to the Emmaus centre where we had a quick chat and got the results before we left for Fermoy again. I finished in 6th which I guess was respectable enough but I wasn't the happiest. There has been better days, both for me and Cycling Ireland!

Tomorrow I'll be racing, so there should be an update again soon. Stay tuned!

Eoin

Race Day 13: Shrewsbury Circuit Race Series

Hello everybody, it's time to get stuck into my race report again but firstly I'd like to just mention that, at the moment, this blog is running on race reports. But I'd like it to be more than that, during the summer when I'm off school I'll try to make it less of a race report blog, but a 2 time a week blog like it used to be! Just putting that out there!

So last Friday I travelled to the UK as part of a Junior Irish team for 2 races, in England Saturday and Wales Sunday. We left Fermoy at 11am-ish and met the rest of the team in Dublin. The plan was to relax that night and when we arrived in Wales, we went to Ryan Mullen's house (Another member of the Junior Squad) where he and his Dad had a spread of sandwiches and other finger food for us all to munch. Cheers for that Lad's! So after chilling out there for a while we left our bikes with him and headed for our B&B/Hotel that was only down the road and got set up for the coming nights.

When I woke on Saturday morning, I had a very pleasant surprise of rain! A thing that has managed to stay away for weeks on end. This was of course a pain in the arse but we had to get on with things. We had our breakfast packed our race bags and got going for Shrewsbury which was roughly and hour and a half away in a car, but it took us about 2.30hrs in the bus. Happy days! When we arrived in Shrewsbury we got our bikes off the roof, signed-on and watched some racing for an hour or so before getting prepared for our own race. Ironically I got my lucky number 13 for the race and until I while ago I never realised it was my 13th race of the season as well! Coincidence? The facilities at the race were unbelievable, changing rooms, showers the lot. Compared to the set-up here it didn't even compare!
After watching a bit of the racing we eventually went to get ready and got our kit (SS Jersey, LS Jersey, Gilet and Shorts) and the team talk. We then went out on the circuit for a few warm-up/test laps as the surface on the circuit was wet, we had to have a few runs at it and pick some lines for the U-turns. The circuit itself was 1km in length and in the shape of an L with 2 hairpins, one being a lot dodgier than the other. Although there was only 2 really big corners there was also a few minor ones which made things hard when you wanted to move up. When the race got going it was pretty fast for the first lap or two then we started to dominate the race. Every break-away that existed we had a man or two on it, and the guys who weren't on the breaks sat near the front and marked everything in the bunch. I'm not going to add too much more detail as I could be here all night. Cormac Clarke won the race in a close up sprint, Caelan Murphy was 5th, I was 7th, Ryan O'Donovan was also inside the top 10 and finally Shaun Rigley finished at the back of the bunch after his strong ride in the break for 13 laps! Overall, it was a good race, Dan was happy, we were all happy and we got a bit of prize money! Some Pics:

Cormac Clarke wins!

Sunday, what. a. disaster! We got word on Saturday night after dinner that Stena Line had cancelled their 5.30pm fast ferry from crossing as the weather was bad and transferred us to the 2.10pm Irish Ferries slow boat instead. This meant the race was very doubtful on Sunday as the next crossing was at 2.30am Monday morning, which was impossible for some of the guys who had work. So none of us knew what was happening all night and for a good while the next morning! All we kept hearing was, "Ye are riding the first hour and going up the road".. which honestly didn't sound good to me, but we were just following orders! So when we got to the Mullen's house to collect our bikes we decided we better head down to the race HQ and apologise and pay the entry fee then leave. Luckily enough it was only 45mins away! As we got closer to Holyhead the weather was progressively getting better and the sun was shining at Holyhead! Couldn't believe it! So waiting for the boat we did what all good cyclists do, had a McDonalds and Ben & Jerrys Cookie Dough. All before 1pm! Some cyclists we are! I think we all know what happened then, we got on the boat, blah, blah, blah. Travel, travel, travel don't want to bore ye any longer.

Ken enjoying my tunes!

So that was a brief enough report of last weekend. Good experience overall, and we have our 100% record in the UK for 2011! One race, One win! Some very good news to announce over the next few weeks so.. Stay tuned!

Eoin

Race Day's 11 & 12: Kanturk 3 Day, Stage 1 and 2 (TT)

Hello. This weekend I was on the go again, a bit closer to home this time - The Kanturk 3-day. Going into the race on Saturday was a tad tiring, especially coming off the Gorey 3-day which finished on Monday. Although it wasn't the hardest race on the calendar, it's by far not the easiest and it takes more than a few days to recover properly before racing again. So let's get to the report:

Stage 1 (100km):

Stage 1, the good ol' Castlemagner circuit where I never seem to get any luck. In 2009 I crashed in one of the selection races for the EYOF and in 2010, while racing for the national team, my whole brake calliper came off on the first 10km. So this year I was hoping I could get through the stage with some bit of luck but, frustratingly I didn't! May I also add, the road surfaces on the circuit were and are absolutely terrible! There was one climb near the end of the lap which made you fell like you were riding Flanders!

The race started off pretty active lot's of attacks and small moves going away. After the first few kilometres I got in a move that was a pretty strong one. But when only 4 or 5 riders are working and roughly 15 in the group we weren't going to get far! We were away for the lap and it was whittled down to 4 just before we were swallowed up, or should I say, I was swallowed up! When the peleton was about 25 metres from catching us I swung to the side and sat in to try save some energy. As soon as this happened the 3 along with some others who joined them got away and this was the main break of the day. Absolutely kicking myself for this mistake! Still can't believe it because I definitely could have stayed with them ! After this there was groups going up the road all day and I was in 8 or 9 out of 10 moves but no, no luck. All the moves I was on got caught and the ones I wasn't in got away! And, the thing I can't understand is, there was people in the moves with me and it was their own - so-called "team-mates" chasing them down. So after trying and trying for most of the race I just sat in the bunch very angry and frustrated at the way the race had panned out. Even now, thinking about it again it really p*sses me off! So the race finished up with the main breakaway finishing @4 minutes ahead and another group @2 minutes on the main group which I finished in. I definitely felt a bit fatigued afterwards after all my efforts in trying to get away throughout the stage. Couldn't wait for the TT!


Stage 2, 8km TT:

Was really excited for the TT this weekend as it was longer and I wanted to see if I could improve! Saturday night I had a thought of not racing Stage 3 but wanted to see how the TT went first. The reason being, I was feeling fatigued and really want to be 100% for next weekend!(Will explain in the next few paragraphs). The TT was the normal 8km course used in the 3-day, which starts at Lombardstown cross and finishes at The Duhallow Lodge. So we left Fermoy nice and early so we had time to get down to Kanturk early to relax and I had time to get a good warm up done before my TT start time. During my TT I felt good and after the finish line I was pretty happy with my performance. I ended up 15th on the stage which I was happy with as my targeted placing was reached, just!


As I mentioned before about next weekend, I am racing in the UK! In England on Saturday and Wales on Sunday. That's why I pulled out of the race this weekend, I want to be in good shape for next Saturday.

So that is my very quick race report on the Kanturk 3-day, well, from the stages I did! Should have another blog up before the weekend so stay tuned! Thanks for reading.

Eoin