Ulster 25 TT Championships

Ulster 25 TT Championships

Today Bann Valley hosted the Ulster 25 mile time trial championships on their club 25 course. A few weeks back when I heard a little more about the course I wasn't so excited. The course runs through a small town on the outward leg and passes back through on the return leg. The gradient of the hill into and out of the town were of some concern, not so much for how hard it would be to pedal up but the speeds we get up to going down, and the possibility of run-ins with vehicles.

When signing on I asked what the score was with marshalling in Kilrea. You need to have a little idea if traffic is going to be warned of cyclists. When we are pushing hard we get these bikes up to 50mph at times, cars don't expect bikes to be going this sort of rate, so you have to be extra careful when going through towns, but in a race situation all your thinking about is going as fast as possible 'win it or bin it' attitude, and all common sense left back at home!

The Competition

The field unfortunately didn't look to be as strong as it has in the past couple of years. With no John Heverin or Madden, among others for me I felt it would be a two horse race between myself and Daniel Stewart. Daniel was last years 25 Champion, which he won with a much stronger field than we had today, and was good to see him there to defend his title.

There was another race to be won within the race and that was for the team prize. The team prize consists of the aggregate times of your three fastest riders. Six clubs featured in for this, Orchard for the first time. Richard Timmins who has improved steadily all year and was always going to go under the hour, Neil Stratton and Matthew Killops neither of which had done a 25 TT stepped up to try and get the club into the prizes. I felt we had a good chance but knew it would be fairly close for the top 3 places.

A lack of course Knowledge

I didn't ride or drive the course before hand so got a quick brief from a rider that had. Not ideal but it was better than not knowing anything even if I hadn't felt my way around the road on the bike before. Other riders again very good at informing of any little bits to watch out for.

I had a bit of a cold at the beginning of the week so hadn't been on the bike so much.I got a spin out at Dromara 16 mile TT on Thursday and had surprisingly good legs so thought they would go quite well today. Unfortunately they weren't quite on song. I had a pacing strategy that was pretty conservative by what I've been capable of doing in the last number of weeks, but it would certainly give me a chance if I could stick to it.

Wind in the sails

We had a nice tail wind for the outward leg and the bike was shifting along well. My heart rate was reading high for the effort I was putting out, this was a little concerning, but I ignored it and stuck to the plan.

Kilrea Part 1 

Heading into Kilrea for the first time I was met with a tough climb, a motorhome and car nipped past me just before I got to the first roundabout. The next roundabout was busy but well marshalled. Unfortunately my motorhome driver wasn't in the same kind of hurry that I was and rolled down the hill at about 25mph (I wanted to be doing 40!) as soon as he hit the national speed limit sign he floored it, I sprinted to try and get some sort of draft to give me back what he cost me but I think I ended up just putting an unnecessary effort into the legs that I would pay for later on, he sped off. The whole affair didn't cost me much perhaps 2 or 3 seconds so I got over it pretty quick and got back down to business.

From there on things were fairly un-eventful, traffic wasn't too bad, the road surface was good and any riders I came upon didn't have cars behind them which can cause issues with overtaking etc.

Homeward bound

The halfway point was a nice wide dead turn in the road, again well marshalled. Somehow I still managed to nearly cycle into the verge trying to take a faster wide arc turn. As soon as I settled back into the saddle and attempted to get to work on the 12.5 miles still to go. I was struggling to push the gear I had planned to, it was beginning to frustrate me. I had an idea in my head what sort of power I would need to do to win and I wasn't hitting the numbers. You start trying to alter your cadence to shift some lactic, but still keep the power up. A sticky gel provided some sort of band aid to affairs in hope it might give a little energy boost later on. 4 miles down the road and all the gel had done for me was leave a horrible aftertaste in my sahara dry mouth. I generally elect not to carry a water bottle on a 25 these days as its not really worth it for just a sip here and there. You tell yourself its faster not to carry one aerodynamically, but at times today in the hot humid conditions I'd have traded my bike for a quick thirst quenching sip of something,  anything! washing the sticky out of date tasting cola aftermath of the gel out of my mouth alone would have been heaven!

Kilrea Part 2

Heading back into Kilrea I had a nice clear run at the sharp hill which was good as I got about halfway up before I had to throw it into the wee ring and get out of the saddle! I was taking up the full of the road and if any vehicles were behind me they weren't getting past until I got out of the town, I wanted a nice fast run out which I got.

Finish

The last 5 miles were pretty flat on a nice surface, I was able to lift the effort a little but nowhere near where I had planned to be, but kept it steady and the form good. I crossed the line in 54.08 by my clock. I didn't think it would be enough.

Maybe not a two horse race!

I rolled back to the carpark. Obviously not knowing how anyone else has done at this point as is the nature of time trialing. I was informed Stephen Colbert had done a time in the 54's also. I had actually missed Stephens name when I glanced over the sign on list. News was filtering in Daniel had also done a low 54, so it looked like it was going to be fairly close between the three of us.

When the results were checked over I had managed to go quickest by a whisker with a 54.09, Stephen with 54.14, and Daniel with 54.15. There is every chance they might have had some traffic issues of their own, I hope not as nobody likes to win due to misfortune.

The rest of the Orchard lads rolled in and times were encouraging, we might have done well in the team competition. When all was counted up we managed to get the silver medals with Phoenix first, we weren't too far away from the gold medals and an encouraging result given Phoneix boasts a member roster around ten times that of our own!

Some More results from the day, well done to all the 2014 champions. (will update when the official results are posted)

• Darrell Erwin - 1st Handcycle
• Eileen Burns - 1st Lady
• Des Woods - 1st Vet Mens
• Diarmuid Logan - 1st Junior
• Laura Maxwell - 1st Junior Lady
• Phoenix - 1st team

Many thanks to Bann Valley who hosted a very good championships and made the course as safe as possible for all competing today. Thanks to Time keepers, photographers and other helpers involved much appreciated.

Great report and photographs by Bronagh Kirk:

http://www.bronaghkirk.co.uk/news/ulster-25-mile-time-trial-championship/

Garmin Data for the ride was:
Average Power: 342
Normalized: 344
Avg Heart Rate: 161
Avg Speed: 27.7mph
Distance: 25miles

Full details:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/544900717

Matthew Killops, Richard Timmins, Myself, Neil Stratton

Great photo by Bronagh Kirk

Orchard Express

Stephen Colbert, Myself, Daniel Stewart

Ulster TT Medal at last

Ulster 50 mile TT Championship

It was an early start to get down to the Woodgreen velodrome. Signed on as per usual pretty much last, I was down in good time and set the bike up on the turbo, and then went for a dander about and had a bit of banter with various people about the paddock. Great to see Bran McKinney out again, without his injury issues he would have been a contender today. 

Where does the time go?

I looked at my clock and it read 9:10am where does the time go I'm off in 15 minutes!! I ripped the skinsuit on and pulled the bike off the turbo trainer and threw the disc wheel on, a warmup wasn't going to happen in the short time frame I had to eat my now customary snickers feast and load up with enough fluid to see me through 2 hours in the July heat.

I made my way down to the starting point throwing in a couple of sprints to try and shock my legs into life! before I knew it I was on the start line with Gordon counting me down from 30 seconds! 

And I'm off!

I usually know within the first minute or so if I have good legs or not, BAD LEGS! Its going to be a long day I thought to myself! I'm looking down at my power and thinking thank god its not a 10, I'd be last! My heart rate wasn't reacting at all I was throwing out 350 watts and it was sitting at a leisurely 130BPM! is 3 minutes into a 50 too soon to deploy a caffeine gel I thought to myself, that might get the cardio vascular system activated...

The first twenty miles where a real struggle couldn't get my heart rate up at all, I settled into a 330w average, for the legs it was a real struggle but I was hardly out of breath I could have held a conversation with someone next to me, for some reason my heart and lungs didn't want to play ball, the legs where doing everything and had to be consciously turned round. With myself not just firing on all cylinders I concentrated on making everything else good, i.e my pacing and my position on the bike. I never looked to the other side of the road I just concentrated everything on myself and the effort that I was putting out.

Time for your Rations

We only have one bottle cage on the TT bikes so your running with a 700ml bottle and a few gels and those have to be duly rationed out over the portion of the course. I choose to have mine during the trips around the roundabouts it stops me forgetting which is easy to do when your so concentrated on turning the legs with some sort of rhythm.

My milage clock now read 15 miles to go the wind had picked up and the course started to feel slow. Thankfully my heart rate and lungs were working a little better and I started to find everything a little less of a struggle. I was able to open the taps a bit more, but still being careful not to get too carried away. 

The last 10 miles I really started to push on and was able to lift the pace more and more as I got towards the finish! 3 miles to go and I let the flood gates open and the legs started to respond nicely! The finish line sits at the top of a short drag, which is absolutely brutal after you have been hammering it for 50 miles, you have no choice but to empty yourself up it as every second counts in this game!

The scores are on the board

By the time I had done a short cool down and made my way back to see how my time stacked up against everyone else, John Heverin was just finishing he also gave all on the last hill and looked to finish very strong. 

Colm Cassidy had made the long trip up to do the event, as he isn't from Ulster he wasn't eligible for the championship so I knew it would be John Heverin, John Madden and myself shooting it out for the top spots. 

47.44 2014 Ulster TT Champion

Maurice gave me a pat on the back indicating I had the fastest time of the Ulster men with 47.44.  The two Johns not very far off my time and were both very quick to congratulate me, not only great testers but great sports. The bar his been set high by those two and if you take a look back through time trialing in Ulster over the last number of years those are two names you will see most of the time occupying the top spots. To get the best out of ourselves it takes having great competition and they certainly bring that in droves.

Colm Cassidy Posted the fastest time of the day, given he was 4 seconds off winning the Elite National Championships the other week was great to have him along, conditions a bit tougher today than last year and I'm sure on a better day he would have pushed the all time record for 50 miles set last year pretty close, well done Colm great effort.

Well done to John Madden also who picks up the Vets prize, Eileen Burns who won the women's prize and Ballymoney who won the Team Prize.

Some Photos by Alicja Černák Thanks

John Madden, Myself, Colm Cassidy, John Heverin

Some Photos by Josh Murray

Thanks Marryland Wheelers

Great event run by Maryland Wheelers, the marshalling at the roundabouts was brilliant so thank you to those that stood out this morning to keep us safe. As always great time keeping by Gordon Parker and thanks to all others that were involved.

For the data junkies here are the stats:

Click to view full data on Garmin Connect

Distance: 50 Miles
Average speed: 27.8mph
Average Heart Rate: 151 BPM (Low even by my standards!)
Average Power: 329W