National Championships

Last weekend the 10th & 11th I travelled to Castlebar to take part in both the TT & Road National Championships. Only a few days prior to going I decided to ride the TT and now, I can say it was definitely worth it.

The TT did turn out to be a lot different than I expected. I was expecting a 10 maybe 15km route, but no, 30km! Which is the longest TT I have ever rode. The conditions were very challenging. Wind, rain and very open main roads with long draggy sections. I was the second last rider to take to the start and the winner Ryan Mullen of Planet X was the last. Over the 30km I caught my minute man, 2nd minute man along with the 3rd and 4th. When crossing the line at the finish, I was very confident that I had got 2nd, not 1st as Ryan had caught me after 7-8km and passed everyone after he had passed me.

I am very happy with my silver in the event as I wouldn't consider myself a "TT specialist" at all and only rode a handful or so TT's this year (Mostly TT's which were part of stage races). 

Now onto the Road Race. The weather worsened overnight and the rain got harder, along with the 12 degrees temperature it wasn't the most pleasurable way to start the rugged 105km race. Inside the first 5km, according to PlanetXIreland.com "The usual suspects" made their move, these include: Ryan Mullen (Planet X), Javan Nulty (Dectek), Jack Wilson (Crabbe-Performance), Darragh Zaidan (Stevens Cyclogical) and myself. We found ourselves getting a very big gap very quickly which was perfect for me as I was worried about missing some kind of split or move, and when, arguably the 5 strongest riders in the race, were in the move and I thought that was it for the day.

But I couldn't have been more wrong! After 15km or so it started to break down even further. The reigning champ Jack Wilson got distanced from the break when Ryan Mullen made his race winning move, which was a shock to everyone I think, as Jack hadn't lost a national championship since he was 13. Javan Nulty, Darragh Zaidan and myself rode the next 70 odd kilometres together to be caught by Wilson and Conor Brennan (Errigal) with roughly 25km to go.

Shortly after they got across, I punctured and it's safe to say that it wasn't the quickest of wheel changes. I must have lost 2-3mins alone just in getting the wheel changed and with the difficult conditions I knew I'd never ride back on by myself.

Chasing Alone for the final 20km

As I said, Mullen went on to win solo 2mins 40secs ahead of Nulty and Wilson. I ended up a credible enough 7th place roughly 3mins down on the group I was in, after my unfortunate turn of events. It was very disappointing as I was having such a good ride and I definitely felt that I could have done something in the finale.

Cheers to that!

So another season has now come to an end, and I can say a lot of positives have come from the past month's. At the start of last year I would have never thought I'd have achieved so much and I'm now looking forward to having a break. Another blog update will be due in a few weeks when I arrange and think about my plans with my coach for next season. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read my blog, really appreciate it!

Eoin