DCCX Kalas Classics Series 2015 Round 2: Killruddery

Long Story Short

• Finished 52nd out of 71,
• Finishing time was 43:07,
• Lap times were 7:09, 8:25, 8:51, 9:22 and 9:20,
• Got lapped by 4 riders,
• Didn't crash this race.

Strava

View the race on Strava: DCCX Round 2: KillMUDDERy. 52/71.

View the race Replay on Strava FlyBys: DCCX round 2. I enabled;

• Myself, I am the posterboy for Ginger CX Magazine,
• Barry, we had a good battle for 51st,
• Andrew, he finished 7th, 2 minutes after the leader.

Course Segment

MultiMedia

Full Results can be seen here: DCCX Kalas SuperLeague Round 2.

Alek had his Handlebar camera: DCCX Kalas Classic Series 2015 (vol 2).

Sean Rowe was snapping the Ladies race, the B race and the A race.

Short Story Long

Build-up

Stages cycling support were very helpful. They said to leave the Power Meter indoors for 24 hours for it to dry out. I got a new battery door from Fitz Cycles and took it for an FTP test. The test put my 7 Watts off my 20 minute peak power which was recorded in March after a few hard months on the Turbo. I was pretty happy about the result, and I knew I could go harder. I decided to not use the Power Meter on my CX bike anymore.

I was really happy to see that the Vegan message is getting out in the open. GoVegan.ie's poster campaigns at the bus stops and the subsequent radio interviews are hopefully opening the public's eyes to the trauma that humans are capable of inflicting on a grand streamlined scale. A radio debate on NewsTalk ensued, the Vegan lady, said that animal abuse was "unethical". The "Cow and Sheep" representative had only one option left to him. He went with the nuclear response; "These Vegans believe that cows are raped". This lead host Chris Donoghue to end the interview there and then.

Even with the glaring evidence of the WHO's report, the government won't speak out about the animal trade, as they have campaign sponsors who are heavily invested in meat. Teagsc had a report detailing that by completing a conversion from a Dairy farm to an Organic Veg farm, you can increase your profits by €200pha. Although you'll have to go to Farmer's Markets at the weekend instead of CX races.

I fell victim to Amazon's Black Friday build-up deals when buying an SSD for my four and a half year old MacBook Pro. Which, like Paula Radcliffe, is running really well after upgrades are applied.

Pre-Race

The low lying winter sun blinded my eyes as I tried to navigate the non-existent car park. I didn’t know how to park. Being the third car at the event, I was going to be the car parking trend setter. The guy who handled the sign on arrived and told me there was a better car park around the corner, which I availed of. I went in to sign-on, where I encountered Alek, Barry M, Breda and our latest debutant, Luke.

I was the second person on the course. I did three laps. The first two laps I rode on the sides of the course, to discover where best to avoid the bumpy and soft sections. The third lap, I put the lap together, I knew the lines I’d be taking and the sides of the course I’d be elbowing to occupy at the start. The most important line of the course would be the entry to, and avoidance of, the water covered tractor tyre tracks. Whilst cleaning the muck out of my shoes and pedals using a tyre level, I watched riders trying that watery section. Everyone hugged the inside of the corner. I was going to ride the middle of the track and swerve across before the water. That line, would mesh nicely with the requirement to “just smash it” across the preceding section where John was marshalling.

The women’s race was delayed by fifteen minutes. I watched their start to cheer on Naoise and Breda. I also wanted to see what would happen at the first obstacle. I noted that the field was half the size of the previous week’s field, 13 racers as opposed to 26.

I headed back to the car to prepare for my race. I met Richard, Valdis and Fionn (whom I believe was making his debut in the cauldron of the A-race, fair play for not sandbagging). I lent my pump to Valdis to adjust his tyre pressures. He was going with 50psi in both tyres. I opted to go with 30psi. I should’ve gone down to 20psi, as the course evolved, it would request more grip. I didn’t anticipate this. Michael and Barry K also showed up. I consumed a gel and sank 750ml of water with a High5 Extreme Caffeine tablet dissolved in it. I couldn’t sleep until 2am that night.

I struggled to pin on the fourth pin, and needed help from some nice Australian/New Zealand people. I joined up to the grid. I wanted a good position after the previous week, where I started at the back. I wanted to be on the right hand side of the grid. It would allow me to access my planned line and the surface was more compacted there. I was about half way back in the grid of 71. Valdis was directly in front of me, Richard was to my left. Luke was diagonally behind me. Mike and both Barrys were buried in the scrum behind.

The Grid

Race

The countdown expired and we accelerated off. Most riders went to the left of the track. I made up lots of places by using the centre channel. Two lads came a cropper in front of me just before the water. I navigated between them and asserted my dominance over the point of track I wanted to use to cut across. Traversing this soupy section I was the second placed Orwell rider, with only Barry K ahead.

Water finds its level, and I was soon passed by Valdis, Richard and Mike. They powered along the bumpier, right side of the track in front of the hay bales. I occupied the smoother left side. After a few more corners, a guy on a mountain bike crashed, forcing me to lose momentum. I ceded places to Barry M and Luke. I looked back as I climbed the corn field section. I was about eighth last.

I was very weak on that climbing section. But I was much stronger and braver on the grass field downhill section. Throughout the race, I made up a lot of positions on this section. It was just a case of holding position through the mucky woods by going through a rut. After dismounting to jump the ditch, the lap brought us around to the timing mats. This was a nice part of the track. It allowed the tyres to shed muck, in the early laps anyway. From there it was about being brave through the wooden bridges and carrying as much speed, using a big gear, as possible through the John’s mucky section. I was getting bounced around, like a rag doll, but I was heading in the right direction. If you’re not in danger of slipping a disk in your back, you’re not going hard enough.

Another lad binned it just as I was about to make my cut across to avoid the water. I let him know I was displeased with his actions, as I dismounted and ran the following section. It was beginning to look like a Tesco Chow Mein, the one in the red box. It probably tasted nicer than its food counterpart. The rest of the lap passed of nicely.

The stuff CX courses are made out of.

I caught up to Barry in the corn field section of lap three, he said that it would not be his day. Next I caught sight of Luke. He, like many others, was paying for a fast start. John was cheering me on each time as I exited the forest section. I gave him a “Two ‘Go Luke’s for the price of one” deal as I made the pass on, nine years my junior, Luke.

Some guy rubbed tyres with me through the soupy section. I could feel the thread of the tyres jar. Then they gave way as he went down. He didn’t look as much like Harvey Dent as I expected, as he ran past me, nudging my shoulder with his back wheel. I made up another place on section in front of the bales. The guy almost lost it on the corner and clipped me. I was OK with this. I let him know that I was of the opinion that CX is a full contact sport. After my left hip coming in contact with tyres in the last three races, I could not opine differently. I encountered Michael in the corn field, we traded places twice as he sped off. The next time I saw Mike, he was standing at the side of the road.

The last lap of the race passed without incident, if you call getting skunked on the line by Barry “without incident”. After I made the pass on Barry, he was always within striking distance, just like at PunchesCross. We were able to fend off the leaders lapping us until the last lap. I sensed Barry’s presence through the corn field. I backed off through the greasy grassy downhill section, as more leaders lapped me. Any time I looked back Barry was looming larger. After transcending the ditch I had a few meters on Barry. I was on the drops giving it everything I had. There was a spec of dirt on my Garmin screen, it was obscuring my speed, I thought it read 36kmh, but it was 26kmh. I thought I had done enough, but Barry just appeared on the inside and beat me to the line by a bike length. I passionately voiced my feelings, which drew a few chuckles from the crowd. I lost the sprint for Fifty-first.

From Sean Rowe

Post-Race

Lots of riders followed my previous week's example, they took an extra lap at the end. The only problem with the races is that there is not a flag at the end. The course was laid out very well and the chip timing was a great addition to the DCCX series. The comments on Boards were very complimentary, as opposed to the previous round of DCCX.

I missed the whole A-race, as I waited in-line to use the hose and get my clothes changed. Wobbles, who parked beside me had a pretty badass power washer. It was a tank of water and a motorbike battery with a small pump. The complimentary beer was really nice. The presentation of the prizes took place and most people filtered out after that. I stayed to watch the last lap of the World Cup race that they were streaming. Everyone enjoyed Sven Nys pulling out the victory.

Pre-hose

What Was Learned

• Hoses are good at cleaning bikes, but it still needs more attention to fully clean it.
• The number of riders that I am being lapped by is decreasing, which is a great sign.
• My climbing is still bad.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Fixx SuperCross Cup 2015 Round 3: Tymon Park

Long Story Short

• Classified as 57th, but I ruined the rankings by taking an extra lap,
• Actually finished 64th out of 89 riders,
• Finish time was 45:57,
• Lap times were 10:45, 10:51, 11:53 and 12:11,
• Got lapped by 18 riders,
• Had a few falls.

Full results are available on the Fixx SuperCross Cup Results Page.

Strava

View the race on Strava: Fixx SuperCross Cup 2015 Round 3: Tymon Park, B Race. 64/89. Finished with 10psi in my back tyre.

View the race on FlyBys: Fixx SuperCross Cup 2015 Round 3: Tymon Park, B Race.
I've enabled the Orwell Riders;

• Myself; every race needs pack fill,
• Barry; he had a great ride to 50th,
• John; after a poor start, he recovered well to finish 45th,
• Valdis; Orwell's B-race lynchpin, finishing 16th.

Course Segment

Although some of them times are very suspect.

Multimedia

Alek had his handlebar camera on for this race, watch the video: 2015 FIXX Supercross / round 3 / Tymon Park.
Sean Rowe was around the course for the A-race, the B-race and Ladies race.

Short Story Long

Build-up

My back wheel was slipping on the Glencullen golf course when I got out of the saddle, I presumed due to high tyre pressure. I wanted to go Tubeless with my tyres, to get dem sweet, sweet low pressures. I put in a large order to Bike24 and Chain Reaction for bike upgrades. I really lusted after that Ultegra CX crankset. Live is too short to ride five bolt cranksets.

The conversion was hard, due to my rookie mistakes, but I got it done. I also got a head light, so I could ride in the dark. Orwell's A4 group are doing night intervals and there's a secret CX meet-up on Thursday nights. It's fun not having to explain to a wife about my expenditure.

"Your bike already has tyres and a pedal thing, why are you buying these, we're saving for a deposit, I can't live with Farty Frank in this dinky apartment anymore." - Non-existent wife.

"Listen love, the tyres will allow me to run lower pressures without pinch flatting, the new crankset is 40g lighter than the old one, and Frank doesn't fart as much as your mother." - Me not having to explain my logical decisions.

I rode a Mucky CX session with Mark, who won the previous two B-races. As Spectre is out, I'll use a James Bond comparison to distinguish us. He's in the class of Eva Green in Casino Royale, I more like Henchman 32 in the Timothy Dalton one.

The Paris Murders had me pretty rilled up. It took my a few days to figure out who, or what, I was truly angry at. Nothing quite like a terrorist attack to make you confront your own mortality and life. Everyone has an opinion on this whole Middle-East debacle. War has always been, rich people getting richer and poor people dying. According to Fallout, "War... war never changes".

Imagine if defence budgets were put into renewable energy forms. Praise the work of Gates and Zuckerberg. There would be no need to influence politics in foreign nations for their Black Gold reserves. But alas, we live in a world where disposable World Leaders have warmongers to obey, lest they end up like one, or more, of the Kennedy clan.

Pre-Race

I had another worry on my mind. My Stages Power Meter was on the frtiz. I thought it was Water Damaged, it was shorting out and draining batteries. How would I get it working again? How would I be able to make purple lines appear on my Strava graphs? These were my thoughts as I waited for Tymon Park to open. I parked in the estate across the road from the gates, as to not obstruct the traffic. I used Google Maps to scout the car park size. I reasoned that I needed to be there super early to get a nice spot.

I chatted to Siobhan and Alek as we signed on. I did three practice laps. I could not muster the courage to ride the drop. Valdis was making his CX debut in the Dublin area. He had previously raced north of an imaginary line. We watched the Women's race. Most of them were riding the drop. I retreated to my automobile for the thirty minutes before the race to eat, drink and pin on numbers. I forgot to check my tyres for pressure. The rear tubeless tyre was still leaking air out of one spoke.
I went over to the start line, and took a run the first part of the lap. Upon my return, I discovered that the grid was full. I would be starting from the back. There was five minutes to go to the start. I seen a track pump beside me. I had no place on the line to lose. I himmed and hawwed about it, and decided not to. I should've pumped my tyre there.

I was beside two youngsters from the Kanturk stable. They would be starting a minute after those who've been through the heady days of college life. Two pizzas, fifteen cans and a mosh to "Killing in the Name of" a week, I'm still feeling the effects of after four and a half years.

Race

Lukie Räikkönen need to whip out some Michael Schumacher type shit, except wearing a helmet and cycling on-piste. So I did what Schuie would've done, I cheated gained an advantage over my rivals. I held onto the railing and had both feet already clipped in. I felt like an absolute wanker. I havn't been drinking very much alcohol, the feelings of shame and guilt are not masked for me anymore. Those feeling quickly disappeared as I started making up places. I was in the thick of it for the first lap. I jumped down the drop, and ended up running most of the forest section. I even passed John. Then I slowly lost all the places I made up.

The socks were not so white in the later laps - Sean Rowe.

On the second lap, a guy on a Mountain Bike was trying to come by me at the start of the Off-Camber section. There was thistles to the right of the narrow track. I popped out my elbow, to defend my space. He decided to bide his time to make the pass. Opting not to cycle through the thistles. He passed me on the second climb of that section.

Most of the rest of the race I was competing with a guy in a black and white harlequin patterned jersey. I didn't descend the drop during the race, as I was losing all faith in my brakes. There was a little kid at the entrance egging me on to ride it. I had a fair few falls. I passed Michael in the forest section once. His balding rear wheel was not aiding his cause in the mucky section. Just after I passed him, I tried to remount. My pedals were so full of crud, that I could not clip in easily. I slowly fell over, as I shouted out "cunt". I had a collision with a tree trunk on my second last lap, I entered the start of the forest section with lots of speed, but I couldn't steer. I went straight into a tree trunk, my second tree collision of the season. On my last lap, I fell on the mucky downhill after the forest section was cleared. Someone bike hit my hip, but he didn't fall.

Discussing forestry with Mike - Sean Rowe.

I did fairly well in the "spiral of confusion", I was just aiming for the greenest parts that dwindled as the race wore on. On the other muddy sections, I also followed the principle of staying on the green areas on the side of the trail in the other muddy sections. The problem with the traction on the course was that there only one section for the tyres to accelerate to a speed where the mud would reach escape velocity. From the wall section to the end of the forest section, it was just constant slow speed riding and mud.

My main fear was burping my rear tyre, and/or denting the rim. The pressure in the rear wheel was slowly vanishing into thin air. I didn't put the Stan's Yellow Tape in the rim, as I thought that the standard blue tape would do the job. I do believe that this was the ride that helped seal the one spoke where air was escaping. Every time I hit the root in the wall section or the curb at the end of the lap, I could feel the rim. My rudimentary bunny hopping skills debilitated to front wheel popping skills as the race wore on. So I was not able to avoid these obstacles. But I feared the burp on the bridge. As I got to the other side of the crossing, the rear of the bike would slide all over the place as I put the power down. But the upshot of the low pressure was fantastic control in the mud. I finished the race with 20psi in my front tyre and 10psi in the back.

At the end I took an extra lap. I don't know why I did it. It happened. I'm not proud. My life was divided into two parts, before that extra lap, and after that extra lap. I just live day to day now.

The finish, or what should've been the finish for me - Sean Rowe.

Post-Race

I was so covered in shit, that I just said hello to a few people and went back to the car. I used the three pieces of Kitchen roll that I brought to get the largest pieces of muck off. But alas, Plenty Kitchen roll's CX bike cleaning properties were not as effective as Occam's Razor or Newton's Flaming Laser Sword at disproving Last Thursdayism.

The tyres were caked in shizzle, but they cleared on the path back to the car.

I ate and lounged out in front of my computer watching some meaningless crap as darkness crept up on me. I had to clean the bike with minimal lighting, in colder temperatures.

When the results were released, my extra lap made me feel really bad for taking the extra lap at the end. But then I went to the Ireland vs. Bosnia match and that made me happy again.

What was Learned

• Get to the grid early,
• It takes less than five minutes to pump your tyres,
• Stop off at a garage on the way home to clean the bike,
• Clean your bike in the daylight,
• Cheating is extremely effective.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Giant PX-2 Wheels Converted to Tubeless

I wanted to change my clincher wheels to tubeless for CycloCross. The Mud is starting to appear and running 40psi (2.75bar) is not ideal. I also didn't want to pinch flat from running lower pressures. I don't complain because that's what losers and victims do. I solve shit.

What you will need:

• Tubeless Compatible wheel; Giant PX-2 Wheelset, although wheels without spoke holes in the rim are best, like the DT Swiss rims.
• Tubeless Ready tyre; Maxxis Mud Wrestler EXO TR,
• Tubeless Valve Stems; ones with removable cores are the best,
• Tubeless kit: Sealant, Yellow Tape, Valve Core Remover and Sealant Injector,
• Tyre Levers; plastic are recommended,
• Soap Application kit; Sponge, Sink and Dish Soap,
• Tyre Inflation Device, i.e. a pump,
• An Inner tube, for the initial seating/rounding of the tyre,
• Patience and a Work Ethic,
• A sense of humour, as there are some dodgy jokes in this article.

Process

Where I fucked up: Install Stan's Yellow tape over the Blue Rim Strip. Do this first. It makes it easier when air is seeping out of the spoke holes.

Other Notes: The Stan's black Rim Strips didn't bring me any success. I couldn't get the tyre to seat at the valve using these.


Put on the tyre, get it aligned and the thread direction correct. Install a tube and inflate it, this will seat one side.

Tubeless tyre with a tube inside to seat one side.

Deflate the tyre, unseat ONE SIDE of the tyre, and remove the tube. In the picture, I should have the Yellow Tape installed.

Keep one side seated as you remove the tube.

Install the Valve stem. Twist on the  Again, I should have the Yellow Tape installed here.

Valve Stem Installed.

Put back on the unseated bead and try to get it as high up the rim as possible, so it will seat faster. Apply the Dish Soap to the unseated seated side, to create a temporary seal. Now take a few deep breaths, mentally prepare yourself for the upcoming struggle. Pump it, pump it like there's no tomorrow. I aimed for 60psi (4.1bar).

Pump it like you're a pornstar.

I missed the picture where I'm injecting the sealant. I put 60ml (2oz) in a tyre with the Yellow Tape, and 90ml (3oz) in a tyre without the Yellow Tape. Add more air and distribute the Sealant inside the tyre. Shake that tyre, like you're an irresponsible baby sitter. I had problems with air coming out of the spoke holes, so I put the holes at the bottom, grabbed the tyre by it's outsides (3 & 9 o'clock positions) and flipped it backwards really fast a few times, until it stopped leaking.



Leave the tyre on each side for five minutes. This will seal the side walls.

Seal the sidewalls.

Wait a while before riding the tyres. Take them on short rides near your home at the start. Enjoy life with less PSI.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Fixx SuperCross Cup 2015 Round 2: Glencullen

Long Story Short

• Finished 84th/95,
• Cumulative time was 43:59.
• Lap times were 10:24, 10:27, 11:37 and 11:31,
• Crashed on Lap 3,
• Lapped on Lap 3,
• I would've finished 15th/20 in the Women's race,
• I would've finished 74th/77 in the A-race.

Strava

View the race on Strava: Fixx SuperCross Cup Round 2: Glencullen Golf Club B-Race. This crashing into other people is becoming a trend.

View the race on Strava Flybys: Fixx SuperCross Cup Round 2: Glencullen B-Race. I enabled;

• Myself, sure why not,
• Karl, who would finish third,
• John, he was the highest placed Orwell rider on Strava, Barry K was not selectable,
• Barry, we had a tiny battle.

The course segment:

Multimedia

Alek had his handlebar camera: 2015 FIXX Supercross / round 2 / Glencullen Golf Course / B race.

Sean Rowe has albums for the A-race, the B-race and Women's race,
Adrian McLeavey also has albums for the A-race, the B-race and Women's race.

Short Story Long

Build Up

I got back from a week on a Spring Core course in Poland. I've been trying to keep animal products out of my body. After watching scenes from Earthlings, animal exploitation not something I want to support anymore. From my experience, Poland specialise in putting animals, into everything. They'd probably make mortar out of eggs if it wasn't against EU building regulation 310-B-46.2. They settled for painting buildings egg shell instead. I had a good time and learned a lot about South American politics, Indian traditions and MicroServices.

Pre-Race

I checked my Instagram's Discover Feed as I was taking my first of three Bathroom visits. Cormac from Cycle Sierra Nevada, was liking pictures of a CX event in Norway. My feed was full of Edvald Boasson Hagen ripping it up on Norway's CX races. Norwegians love two things, cutting down trees and Eddie The Boss.

After I arrived, I would meet Lenny, from Boards.ie. He was sporting a snazzy new rear derailleur. Phoenix Park had claimed his previous one. This course would claim a few derailleurs. Lenny would be hoping for a "Buy two get one free" deal that afternoon. I would meet Daragh, also from Boards.ie, during the race. But as he made his introduction, I was looking like WWE's The Undertaker. My eyes rolled into my skull as I recovered from the hill run up after the bunker.

I lined up on the startline 1.2kg heavier than the previous week's race in Punchestown. 72kg Luke vs. a massive uphill slog, there would be only one victor this day. Still, I asked for no quarter and none was going to be given on this abandoned golf course. The sandy bunkers were going to be tricky. I was very nervous in the practice laps. especially the drop into the second one, which was ridable.

Courtesy of Fixx SuperCross Cup Facebook Page.

It was the first time that a women's specific race had been held. So getting to the venue early to get in at least three practice laps was my aim. Siobhan and Brianne were riding their first CX race. The sand pit provided the first bit of entertainment. Just like a Whale driven insane by the sonar of US Submarines patrolling the Pacific, Brianne ended up beached. Unable to unclip, Barry aided her. She lost a load of time there. The horrible part of the the lap was the attrition on the final uphill section of the lap. The women's faces on the second lap showed the toll it would be taking on me. Fran took out Orla at the top of this section. Orla would be in the wars again when she got trapped in the bluey-green netting. Robin Seymour was on hand to free her and repair the netting. There was a few more slow speed falls. I went back to my car with thirty minutes to go to prepare.

Race

The start procedure was a bit quiet, from the back of the grid. The race was hard. Really hard. I ran up the hill from the first bunker and was able to keep pace with the lads cycling. Every time I did run, my heart rate would spike to 184bpm. Which is my ticker's top end. Only once had my heart rate gone higher. I almost missed a hairpin when descending from Trevelez. I hit 195bpm as I rescued myself.

The running and high heartbeat was the CycloCross equivalent of Premature Ejaculation, as the next part of the lap demanded power and concentration. The off-camber 180º corner into the bunker requested that I focus on making the turn. There was a badly placed stake that was very close to my chosen exit line. It was just about not looking at the kneecap dislocating pole as I cornered. The first lap passed off without incident, well if you call being fourth last as "without incident".

Starting the second lap, I reflected that I loved the green area that comprised the start - finish complex, I enjoyed flowing through it. I bantered a guy on a Mountain Bike about having "CycloCrosser's Crack", the cycling version of "Builder's Bum". He was wearing baggy shorts and a tight jersey, think Gwen Stefani in "Hollaback Girl". I passed Barry, as he untangled the course tape from his bike. Barry quickly regained the place.

Towards the end of that second lap, I dug deep to power passed a Foyle rider on the final uphill section. I held him off until the sand pit. I entered it and heard someone shouting "He's on a great line, he's on a great line." I had a mare of an exit and I fell over. On my way down, I felt his wheel being swayed by my hip. I took him out. The photo was picked up by StickyBottle. It was my first time on there, hopefully not the last. I'm hoping for a Rowan-esque rise on that publication. Where he went from "Unidentified" to headlining their Season Ending A4 Results post.

It was the second race in a row that I had collided into another rider. I said sorry, in person and on Sean Rowe's picture. Conrad took it pretty well. He also wakes up slightly earlier than me, as I had some Facebook notification after my 06:45 alarm went off.

Courtesy of Sean Rowe.

The power required to complete the final uphill section without doing The Walk of Shame was fast deserting me. The second last lap, I had to run the second half of it. The last lap, I had to run it all. I was glad when the race was over.

Post-Race

Eamon, who discovered that I was not a figment of his imagination when I caused him to crash the previous race, was waiting at the finish line. We discussed the race. I wrapped up warm, enjoyed my complimentary Fixx coffee and watched the A-race from the side lines. Eric Phillipe and, debutante, Sean were the Orwell representatives. I noticed that Sean had a large brown mark on his kit. I wondered where he could've come off. Turns out he quickly discovered that CX is a full contact sport. He was on the receiving end of a Luke-ing from one of the series sponsors.

Courtesy of LuccaSports Race Report.

Meanwhile, Eric kicked some A-race ass. I noted how I should've been riding the bunkers. I was hitting them under braking. I should've been smashing into them. My legs were very drained for that evening and Monday.

When the results came out, I was very disappointed to be so far down the order. After the uphill slogs, I was happy that I pushed the guys in the shop for the 32T cassette. Anyone who says that "a 39x25 will get you over anything", needs to be locked up with the other wankers who say that "wheels are a better investment than a power meter" and "saddle bags have no place on a bike", so they can all have a big circlejerk.

What Was Learned

I felt that I lacked the power on the uphill sections, but I was very sound on the technical sections. I largely ignored this performance, as I put it down to a week of eating and drinking shit.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

DCCX Kalas Classics Series 2015 Round 1: PunchesCross

Long Story Short

• Targeted a Top 75 finish - turns out there was 75 starters.
• Finished 59th
• Lapped near the end of Lap 3.
• Crashed on Lap 4.

Strava

View the ride on Strava DCCX Round 1: PunchesCross B Race 59/75. Only the one crash.
View the course segment Punchestown Lap - Punchestown lap

View the race replay on Strava FlyBy, I've enabled;

• Myself, the star,
• Richard - who finished fifth,
• Barry - to view how close we were after our early skirmish,
• Michael - highest placed Orwell rider.

Multimedia

Alek had his handle bar cam again. It's one of his better videos from an action perspective. He didn't have the greatest of starts but recovers with an impressive number of passes.
Sean Rowe was the photographer on the track. He published more than three hundred and thirty images from across the main events.

Short Story Long

So there I was, I looked at Jay, he looked back at me with is brown eyes. He had no idea what was going on inside my head. We were in McDonalds, the only open place in town, on the main street in Gliwice, Poland. I had not eaten a McDonalds' burger in 2015 (I've had a few BurgerKing and Mcflurrys). Now I was about to eat my second of the day. How did I get here? This is my story...

Build-up

I've had a busy few weeks since the Grange Castle CX race. My bike needed a service. It turns out my rear QR wasn't tight enough, and that was to blame for the gears shifting under load. This caused a broken chain one night when I was training with, among others, the DCCX organiser, Sean.

My car also needed an NCT and only needed a visual re-inspection. Not bad for ten years old. The lowest point was my fourteen year old dog, Kenny, needing to be put down. He was very sick and the vet said that he would have no quality of life. It was strange not to have him greet me as I got home to Galway. He had a great life and was on the verge of reeling back the years this summer, when my other dog, Sam, was in heat. He's buried in the flowerbed, outside my bedroom window, with my previous dog, Lass.

The highest point was experiencing Ireland beat Germany in the Aviva.

I had been working on my weaknesses from the previous race, weak core, run-ups and sprinting out of corners. The latest Thursday night session with Sean was very informative, we were concentrating on riding a U-shaped track, where the first part was downhill and the exit was uphill. I may as well have been using a laser pointer for all the good my front light was. I left the session having learned some things, but a bit disheartened. The next evening I put in a solid hour in the park along the Dodder. I did a lot of these U-shaped off camber corners.

Pre-Race

I woke very early on Sunday morning, I had everything ready to go from the previous day. My only concerns were performance anxiety, eating a bowl of Almond Milk and Maple Syrup Porridge and stretching.

I arrived well before my target of 10am. I used this time to sign on and get my number. This race would be marred by these numbers. The toilets were a bit of a ride away from the course, couple this with getting out of and back into a skinsuit and you have a long time to allocate to a bathroom break.
I ended up doing three laps of the course, on Alek's advice. The first lap, I was very scared of the sharp descents after the dismount points. On the second lap, I took my time to remount before descending them and on the third lap I was very comfortable. I should've paid attention to the surface at the foot of the descents, something I rectify in future.

The grass was longer than Grange Castle, but nothing that troubled the rear derailleur's jockey wheels. The course contained a very bumpy section where the Rushes had been cut. The run-up was grand the first two times, but the third time, I was goosed. I had to stall for a breather as my eyes were rolling up into my skull and my lower back was feeling weak.

I didn't ride the step-up or the first clay ascent in my practice laps. It was possible to ride the clay ascent using the left side of the path, as it wasn't obstructed by a tree root. One of the racers moved some twigs to clear the left side of the step-up, so now it could be ridden. The organisers were baffled as to the identity the assailant, who the media have dubbed "The PunchesCross Lumberjack". Although posters on various internet forums claim to be this mysterious person, no disqualifications have been made. The hunt continues...

Pinning on the number was a disaster, but I got it sorted. I lent my pump to Alek and went to the bathroom before going to the startline to properly sort out the number. There was a large Orwell contingent on the grid, most of us in our new Skinsuits with new club sponsor Scott on them. Scott have been pumping a lot of money back into the sport and it's good to be associated with them. We had a few people making their cross debut too. John tried to banter me about consuming a caffeine gel before the race, but I wasn't having any of it.

I had already decided on 40psi for the tyres. With the course having nettles and other plants, I decided to use leg warmers. I went with my trusty Adidas gloves, that my mother has sown up in a few places, I didn't want a repeat of the chaffing on my hand from the Grange Castle race. I employed an Aldi sleeveless base layer under the skinsuit. There wasn't any pockets, so I was using my saddle bag to hold only my keys. I would have offered to hold other people's keys too, but I had to leave straight after the race.

The Women and B-Racers moved to the grid at the bottom of the hill. The orgaisers told everyone to ensure you had the number on your right shoulder. This caught lots of people off-guard. I was the only person around, when I was getting my number, so I had the time to double check that the guy said "on the right shoulder". The rider in front of me had his number on this back pockets. When the 30-second call was made, I setup my pedal for entry and opted for the 36-32, my position on the grid and the hill dictated that gearing choice. With ten seconds to go, I got onto the saddle and my tippy toe.

Race

Lap 1

I waited for the people in front of me to move. My start wasn't great, I was near the back of the grid and I couldn't keep pace with most of the riders beside me. This wan't a massive problem, as there was a big queue at the first obstical. I slowed to allow the crowd to pass. This allowed the legs to adjust to the effort, as I had been standing around for the previous thirty minutes. As I rode up the other side of the bank, I was back onto the group. I noticed John had a problem, which allowed me to pass him.

A little gap opened in front of me, which I let happen. This allowed me to ride up the first proper vertical ramp. Using the left side, I passed a guy who was clipping in. After that descent it lead in to the second vertical ramp. This was not ridable. I noticed I was dismounting later than my immediate competitors. I used all my David Millar power to fire the bike vertically upwards. My next step was to launch off my ankle. I was at the top with three steps.

I was back on the bike and held position, behind Barry until I attacked him before the first gravel section. Barry passed me again on the run up. There was lots of encouragement from the people on this climb. There was a mother and two kids on the final turn shouting "Go Orwell". Barry put a decent bit of time into me on the climb back to the start finish line.

Lap 2

I could hear Sean on the mic cheering me on. A guy on the first turn cheered Barry on. I was right on his wheel again now. I looked back I was about fourth last. There was a hard-charging John steaming towards us. I stayed behind Barry for a few more turns. John caught up and inquired about how my gels were working out for me. We both passed Barry. With John powering towards the horizon. My next pass was a guy in a blue jersey. He slowed too much going into an off-camber corner and he was slow coming out of it. I had the gears set up before I was on the brakes. I got a better run out of the corner and put the screws to him. This CycloCross is easy. There wasn't much happening for the rest of this lap, except for one really sweet pass I put on a guy.

Lap 3

Sean cheered me again, and I heard the people noting the numbers say "57" as I passed. I looked back on the grass section to see Barry was still within striking distance. My only pass on this lap was Brendan, the really young lad. I was feeling good for the rest of this lap. My only concern was that the drop on the other side of the first clay ramp was becoming more and more loosely packed. I ran fairly wide on it this time round. I got lapped by the men's leader. The top two women passed me too. But I was enjoying it too much to care.

Just before the first dismount point, I spotted a pair of riders. Both were known to me. Richard, looked like he had blown-up after a fantastic first lap. The other was a man I had not seen in a long time, Eamon from my old club, Shannonside in Athlone.

I took the wide line into the dismount to avoid Eamon, and went up the left side of it, I had not taken this side before. As I got to the top and remounted, I balked. I should've paid more attention on my practice laps. There was a pothole at the bottom of the descent in front of me. Me getting flung over the handle bars was a possibility, I steeled myself for this. But I avoided this fate.

I gave Eamon some encouragement as I passed him into the sand-pit, before the rushes section. He reckonised me. I didn't look back, as I was slowly closing in on Richard. Eamon and I traded places twice more, he passed me on the climbs and I passed him on the corners. He finally made a pass that stuck on the climb to the finish. As he soared by, he said "I can still climb though". A reference to when we rode the 115km Croí Lap of Lough Corrib together. He put five minutes into me on the climb out of Maam Cross.

Lap 4

Sean encouraged me more and my number was noted again. My legs turned to jelly as soon as I was on the grass. The only thing keeping me going was Richard, who beat me by four minutes at Grange Castle. I have been assured, by medical experts, that the definition for the way he was looking is; "shot to shit". I was also gaining back the ground I lost to Eamon. My blood was up, I was going to pass these two on the upcoming two ramps. This CycloCross thing is a piece of piss.

Eamon dismounted and ran up the clay ramp. Richard rode up on the left. I followed. Richard was going over the top as I got there. Eamon was remounting on the right. I made the first pass.
The next thing Richard heard was "shcrruck, you fuck, no no no, aaagh, shit". I, like the sisterhood of the Titanic, was resting on the floor. The bike had slid out from underneath me on the loose packed clay at the bottom of the rise. I was lying on my right side. Eamon, powered by gravity (Newton's Invention, not the Space RomCom), was catapulted over the bars as his front wheel hit my left hip.

My thought process was; clear the path, how was Eamon's bike, how was my bike, Barry will pass me. Michelle came down the path. I handed Eamon his bike. He fixed his chain. I though my chain was off, but it had jumped down the cassette.

I exited the tree section, Richard, and my chances of avenging the four minute Grange Castle deficit, were gone. Spurred on my adrenaline I skipped up the next ramp. My legs began to give in on the grassy section, as I noticed my leg warmer had a hole in it.

I really hoped that there wasn't any damage to the skinsuit, or my flesh. I didn't fancy sitting on a Ryanair flight to Krakow missing a chunk of knee skin. It's not everyday I encounter a former world champion and current bronze medalist. Orla passed me on this Rushes section, looking unbelievably pro.

From Sean Rowe

As I approached the run up, I was hoping Sean Rowe would get a picture of me, really dusty and torn leg warmer. I could use it for Tinder. "Luke, 26, Can't grow a beard. Finds rugby to be a seditive. Doesn't prefer to, but when called upon, can get his hands dirty." Anyone who has used Tinder for five minutes will realise that this filters out ninety percent of southside women.

Lap 5

When Eamon didn't pass me on the hill, I felt really guilty. Had I ruined his race and possibly his bike? This nagging guilt, plus the growing fatigue in my legs and lower back, made me glad I had just to get to the finish.

As I approached the clay ascent, my Waterloo, I said "once more into the breach." I took it gingerly going down, and shouted "turn, turn, fucking turn" at the bottom.

Most of the other front runners were passing me now. I kept moving off the racing line to let them through. Alek gave me some encouragement as he came past. As I had been lapped, I didn't have to complete a sixth lap.

Post-Race

I posed for a picture for Sean Rowe, at the finish line. This image didn't not exude the powerful alpha-male magnetism that my Tinder profile required. There was a contingent of Orwell riders, Richard had finished a minute a head of me. Barry was home soon afterwards. I seen Eamon come through and I got his attention. I apologised again for causing him to crash and ruining his race. He reckoned he was about two meters in the air after going over me. I examined my kit on the side that collided with the bike, there was a tyre track. We talked about the race and the club.

Bodies broken, from Sean Rowe

I had to rush home. I had a plane to catch. After completely misjudging where my carpark was and standing at the wrong shuttle bus shelter. Dublin Airport have an answer to Dundrum Cinema's "Display Popcorn". I'm still bitter about the day I walked up to the Ice Cream counter and pointed at the popcorn buckets on the lit up shelf and asked for one, "that's display popcorn".
In the Airport, I stood between McDonalds and an unbranded canteen. The people in the restaurant looked more miserable than the McDonalds patrons, so I went for it. I ate my fist McDonalds burger of 2015. Apart from the space to put chips on top of the patty, I wasn't missing much.
When we arrived in Gliwice, via Krakow, we checked the square for food. There was nothing open, save a few Kebab shops. McDonalds was the only other option. I pointed to the Big Mac and used all my interpretative dance to explain that I didn't want Mayo on the minced cow carcass.

I was a little jealous that I missed the beer, cake and A-race. Although I wouldn't have drank the beer before driving. I really enjoyed the race, the course and the progress I've made. DCCX should be proud of the event they put on.
The results were a bit off, but my times, bar the first lap, were fairly accurate.

I also had the added excitement of the "race within a race", that the Orwell guys had going on. Richard possessing a five minute lead on me in the CX GC. John and Michael tied 1-1 on head-to-head victories. Me getting one over on Barry for his demolition jobs in the 10 and 25 mile time trials in the Club League.

What Was Learned

• I could see what Sean was showing us about the off-camber cornering. Set the gearing for the corner's exit, Off the brakes and lean the bike under you.
• I need to regain my out of the saddle abilities.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Android Database Tutorial - Basic SQLite DB

UPDATE: This is superseded by the Room Database Tutorial.

Here is the new tutorial: Room Database, Fragments, RecyclerView, LiveData, ViewModel and Data Binding

Is this what you're looking for?

The areas of Android Development that are touched on in this tutorial are:

• SQLiteOpenHelper - For Database purposes,
• AsyncTask - To load the ListView without using the Main UI Thread,
• Thread - To execute queries without using the Main UI Thread,
• ViewHolder Pattern - To display the BlogPost titles in the ListView,
• Dynamic Creation of Database Row IDs - a lot of the database logic deals with the BlogPost titles, so I needed a way to handle insertion.

Introduction

I'm making this tutorial as a future reference for myself, and publishing it so it may be a basic step by step guide for others to implement Databases in their Android Application. I have Googled for "Android Database Tutorial". The Google Developer results are confusing, Android Hive is old/erroneous and Vogella's one is really detailed/long.

The App

This will be a tutorial on the basics of creating a database in Android. The end result will be an app that can create records and display them as a ListView. The reason the app is so simple is to remove the clutter, to allow the database to be the main focus of the tutorial.

Also there isn't a whole lot of data integrity checks, logging, user feedback, exception handling here, so keep your panties unbunched.

I can evolve this app in the following ways, and I will with future posts:

• Advanced Data Types in the Database,
• Content Providers,
• RecyclerView for a nice layout to the ListView,
• ActionBar commands to create and delete BlogPosts,
• Pulling from a RESTful Service, etc...

Android Database Technology

Android uses an SQLite Database when storing data on the device. You can use a remote database too, but it's best to use a RESTful Web Service to accomplish tasks in that way. Storing content locally is good if the user doesn't have a network connection and wants to view current data, or create data for synching to the cloud later.

Database Implementation Flow

I'll provide a synopsis of the steps below. As Android Database interaction is Model Driven, we'll implement our Model Class first. "Model" is just a fancy word for "POJO", which itself is a fancy word for "Plain Old Java Object". Secondly we'll implement the outline of our Database Class, to provide the foundation to build interactions on. The Database Class will be a Singleton, so only one instance will exist in our app, it's best to get into good practices early. There's two schools of thought on the next step; one, implement the queries as needed, as not to bloat functionality, two, write the CRUD logic up front to reduce development time later on and we're in the database zone at this time. I'd recommend the former for normal development, but for the purposes of keeping this tutorial streamlined, I'll take the latter approach. Finally we'll add the UI Activities to make use of the database functionality.

I have the source code posted to GitHub: Android Database Tutorial-Basic repository. Each of the steps below will be a commit.

Step 0: New App with Blank Activity

This step is optional, you may already have the app that you wish to use the database in. Create the new app, give it a name and select the "Blank Activity" to begin with. I just accepted all the defaults for the naming. As none of that matters much in the context of this tutorial. Close MainActivity.java and activity_main.xml when they open. We'll deal with them later. At this point I added my project to Source Control with git.

Commit Diff: 394ff7f

Step 1: Implement the Model Class

We'll add a new package under our app, for good practice. We'll call it "model". Next add a Java Class, which will be our model. We'll call it "BlogPost". Our app will display words that the user creates in a ListView on screen. With that in mind, here is our simple Model Class, it has the ID and the Title fields.

The ID field always needs to be present in a Model Class that we want to be in the database. The ID is the Primary Key for the database. The Database will start from 1, not from 0 as you'd expect. Hopefully, simple stuff here.

Commit Diff: 391add4

Step 2: Implement the Database Class

In this step, we will create the outline of the Database Class. Add another package, call it "database". Add a Java Class, call it "DatabaseConnection" and the kind will be Singleton.

In our code editor we make it so DatabaseConnection.java extends SQLiteOpenHelper. SQLiteOpenHelper requires that we implement its two abstract methods, onCreate() and onUpgrade(). The lifecycle method onCreate() is called when the app is first launched. In the onCreate() method implementation, we issue a CREATE TABLE command to the database. The lifecycle method onUpgrade() is called when the app is updated to a later version, i.e when an update is installed from the Google Play Store. In the onUpgrade(), you can manage the addition and removal of columns from the database table. But in our implementation, we'll just drop the old database in favour of the new version, which will be created when we call the onCreate() method manually.

Commit Diff: c685b65

Step 3: Basic Queries for our Use Cases

The use cases of this app are;

1. Create a new BlogPost.
2. Delete an existing BlogPost,
3. View all the BlogPosts in the database.

Still in our DatabaseConnection class, we add the following three methods after the onUpgrade() method.

Commit Diff: 16bf861

Step 3 Bonus: The other CRUD queries

The abbreviation CRUD stands for Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete. So far we have the Creation, Deletion and Retrieval of records implementation. Let's see how the Updating and other forms of Retrieval of records are handled with respect to our Model. Again, keeping things simple, we'll ignore the possibility of raising exceptions and handling return codes here.

The following methods are pretty self explanatory, they allow for the retrieval of one record, allow updating of one record, count the records, determine if a record exists, and find the ID of an existing record in the database.

Commit Diff: 2340692

Step 4: UI Activity to Insert, Delete and Display Records

As this tutorial is not about UI programming, I'll just leave code for calling the queries the commit ID, for the rest of the code, here for you to examine. The AsyncTask and ViewHolder Pattern is defined in that Commit ID. The UI is an EditText to input BlogPost titles, then two buttons to Add and Delete the BlogPosts, based on their titles, in the ListView based on their titles matching the text in the EditText.

Loading https://gist.github.com/8488564....

Commit Diff: 7b59a0e, this one is a bit of a mish-mash of updates.

Conclusion

I hope this tutorial was basic enough for novice programmers to understand and comprehensive for intermediate programmers to get ideas of this possibilities of storing data locally on the Android device.

All the code is in the GitHub Repository, AndroidDatabaseTutorial-Basic. If the app fails to build on your IDE, start by changing the "buildToolsVersion" in your "app/build.gradle" to match the version in your SDK Manager.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Fixx SuperCross Cup 2015 Round 1: Grange Castle

Long Story Short

• Finished 90th out of 109 riders,
• Set a pre-race goal of finishing inside the Top 50,
• Completed the full 6 laps,
• Lap times were 10:59, 11:01, 11:00, 11:08, 11:34 and 11:48,
• Official time was 1:08:42.
• Had fun,
• Re-evaluated my pre-race goal to be Top 75 for the next race.

Strava

View the ride on Strava: Fixx SuperCross Round 1: Grange Castle B-Race 90th/109.
View the Course Segment: 2015 Fixx Supercross Rd 1.

View the race on Strava FlyBy. I've enabled;

• Myself, as per ús, I'm the star attraction,
• Patrick, he finished 3rd. I couldn't find the other two on Strava,
• Aidan, he was the highest placed Orwell rider, in 10th,
• Alek, he seemed to have a right ol' ding dong with Aidan, and finshed in 11th.

Short Story Long

Build Up

The Bike, or how not to order a bike.

Acquiring the bike quickly went from "I got this" to "It'll be alright on the night". Everyone knows that Canyon and Rose are the best place to buy a bike from in these modern times.

I looked at Rose first, as we've already done business. Their CX bike looked very industrial. Looking on Boards.ie, one lad ordered a CX bike from them and it took 15 weeks to come. Rose had some serious QA issues with their Quick Release Fork. I think they needed to recall some. They updated the bike to a Thru Axle fork. Rose ran out of DT Swiss R23 wheelsets. This left only the Mavic wheels, which are upwards of 2KG sans les tyres. Rose also had a very large frame size for their smallest size. CX Bikes have slightly higher Bottom Brackets. So I could be in danger of being on the wrong end of a nut cracking incident.

Next I looked at Canyon. They had sold out their entire range. They would not be getting bikes back in until the end of August. Their bikes were less industrial looking than Rose. They had QR on both axles and the Shimano/Avid single sided disc brake calipers, so not entirely ideal. The Canyons had DT Swiss R23 Wheels and a nice 11-32T cassette. Canyon was my preferred option. One evening I was scrolling my Instagram feed, I seen a post from Canyon announcing their restock of the 2016 bikes. I put in my order and they replied a few days later. Expected shipping date was Week 39. The end of Week 39 was the 27 of September. This was the date of the first race in the Fixx Series. I wanted to compete. So I was all like, "them there shipping dates are pretty conservative, right?" Someone told me that "Canyon are pretty dead on with their shipping dates". "Fuck" I thought, "I'll be alright, things always fall into place for me". I went off to Portugal for a week. I said if the bike hasn't shipped by the time I get back I'll cancel the order. A 3KG heavier, tanned Luke e-mailed them, informing them that I would like my bike to be put into a lorry by the following afternoon because shipping. I had a bloody nightmare with the Rose shipment last time, it was the slowest that the Germans had moved across Europe in the last 100 years. Canyon's reply; "Your bike is still on schedule to ship next week Mr. Potter". Then I canceled my order, their contract said that they would refund me within 14 days, at the time of writing, it's been 16 days and no sign of my €1.4k, one response to my e-mail, saying that they didn't get my BIC and IBAN from my e-mail, where I clearly stated them. But they've "sent" the payment on Wednesday the 7nd of October.

I went into the Giant Store in Dublin, as it was close to my office. They are very light on stock, of CX bikes anyway. I was interested in the lower end model the TCX SLR 2, but I wanted three things for my bike (Canyon and Rose had these, so I'm not some prima donna);

1. 44cm wide bars, for my stocky build,
2. Shimano Hollowtech II Crankset, so I could mount my Stages,
3. An 11-32T cassette and GS derailleur, for spinning.

They wanted to charge €160 for to put the Shimano Crankset on the lower end model. The Ultegra one is €175. I had already decided that if it was too much for the change, I'd go with the higher end model, which came stock with the 105 version of the Crankset. The Giant TCX SLR 1, also has a front Thru Axle. Both models have the TRP Spire brakes. I was a size small in the bike, they didn't have one in stock. I put in my order for the bike and the parts. They ordered from England. Then said "We'll see what the bike has" in terms of parts. I just presumed that they'd had lots of spare parts in the workshop. They didn't. So 5 working days for the bike, and additional working days for the parts. I eventually got the bike on the Saturday afternoon. Had I not requested the customisations, I'd have got the bike in good time. I was sized up, by a guy who was also going to be racing the Grange Castle B race. The position felt really good. We started with my road position measurements and went upwards from there. The saddle height, from the ground, is the same as my Rose Xeon CW. I did some practice in my apartment complex. Thank you celestial being(s)/humankind for inventing Landscape Gardeners. Pretty sure that last sentence offended everyone and no one at the same time.

Upon reflection, I should've taken one look at the Canyon order date and not trusted ze Germans. But then again, for the price I paid, I'm pretty heartbroken with what I could've gotten from Canyon. Maybe one day when I make it big in this Blogging Game, I can buy something ridiculous.

Skills Session with Robin

Stephen from Orwell organised a skills session with Robin Seymour. This was really good. I used my old road bike. I had been practicing my mounts and dismounts and tight turns. But performing these skills in close quarters was an eye opener. Siobhan did tell me that I am very slow to get off the bike. I tried to improve this by cycling at a step up in my complex. I awoke the next morning to discover a bruise on the inside of my thigh from remounting. "I'm in the club now, initiation complete", is what I thought as I used my housemate's fancy shampoo on my manscaped nether regions. I've heard of other CX riders having to kill Triathletes to gain acceptance on the scene.

The morning after the Curry Before.

I planned backwards from the start time and calculated that I needed to be there at 10am. I had a large veggie rice curry for dinner and a bowl of porridge, with lots of Maple Syrup and breakfast. I then had my usual performance anxiety strike a few times, the medical definition for the result is an "Ice Berg" (happy Brian?, Also don't click the link.).

Pre-Riding the Course

I got there slightly after 10am. I unpacked the bike and cycled over to the sign on. I was about seventh in the queue. I was waiting ages, I reckon about fifteen minutes, in the queue to sign on. When it was my turn, it took a maximum of thirty seconds to recite my name and get my number and timing chip. I do practice saying my name in my head a lot, so maybe I'm more efficient than others. I already had the moral victory. Both the number and timing chip were to be placed on the left arm. When I was in the queue, I noticed a bike I had seen on Boards.ie, I met it's owner Alek, he seemed like an OK dude. I'm not sure if I happened across the other Boards users, they could be anyone, anywhere.

I dropped the numbers back to the car, picked up a bottle and some food. I went for a recon of the course. I had 50psi in both tyres, I didn't want to pinch flat. A tubeless system will most likely be next month's investment, the stock wheels are "Tubeless Compatible".

Alek let me use his footage for this post.

Nice Smooth Tarmac. Then a tiny gravel ramp. We were then onto the grass. The first bit of grass covered a shoulder wrenching bump. A small bit more gravel and we were onto the grass proper.
This was a technical section, which weaved through the trees. It opened up into another slightly bumpy straight. On the turn to the next section there was two tyre tracks that could kill momentum, requiring a wide entry and an apex kiss. There was some off camber sections containing corners. Another bumpy straight with a ramp at the end. There was an equally bump straight ending with a kicker. We were back onto the smoothness, as we skirted the Transformers. A steep stair section followed, too steep for my little legs, I regretted not putting the studs onto my shoes. There was this really cool steep descent that followed the next few corners. Another slightly bumpy straight, brought up the boards. I was really relieved that I had my 36-32 ratio for the next technical section. From here we started the run for home. Just a few more twists and turns and we were popping wheelies onto the path and starting a new lap. I actually found the section from the mounting the path to the start line, the hardest.

I went back to the car and sank 750ml of water, you're not allowed feeding during the race. I met Richard. I stripped down to just a short sleeve jersey, shorts and black ankle socks. It was really warm. I pinned on my shoulder number and wrist timing chip. I couldn't remove the pedals the evening before to put my Power Meter on the bike, so I went with my Heart Rate Monitor. My Garmin couldn't pick up the signal, so I ended up not using it. I would have no data to evaluate after the race, no input into my training intervals.

Eric gave me some last minute advice, mainly to get into the grid as soon as it opens and hold position at the start. I was in there pretty quickly after the grid area opened. I could see Aidan a few rows of me. I relaxed during the countdown. I had my bike in the 46-28, pedal entry position set for the 11 O'Clock position, ready to roll. With ten seconds to go I clipped in my drive side foot, got onto the saddle and used my tippy toes to balance on the road. The MC initiated the countdown, five, four, three, two, one and...

The Race, or how not to race CycloCross

I waited, waited for the others to get out of my way. Then I lit it up. Perfect entry on my non-driveside pedal. I went up through the gears. I passed a few people and stayed at the back on the front group. Some of the other strong started from behind caught up. I was overgeared for the grass section and lost a lot of places. At the turns, I lost even more places as I didn't have the bravery to dive down the inside. The tyres looked like buzz saws, Wacky Races type shit here. With my inability to sprint out of the corners, I soon found myself alone.

From Adrian McLeavey's Album 2015 Fixx Coffee Rnd 1 Grange Castle.

I got passed by the first lady, who started with a two minute deficit, on the second lap. She zipped by me. Two others soon caught me. I at least tried to put up a fight to Michelle. She made the pass just before the stairs. I remounted faster than her. She passed me after the hill. I hoped I could overtake her as she struggled to remount at the boards, but this didn't happen. She sailed off.

From Adrian McLeavey's Album 2015 Fixx Coffee Rnd 1 Grange Castle.

On the third lap, I seen Sandra getting some medical attention, race over situation. I seen her walking later, so hopefully she's OK.

I was able to keep pace with two young lads for a lap. I was making a meter through the corner, as my entry lines were great. My acceleration out of the corner was very poor. The MC called out my name, but not my position thankfully, as I passed. I waved to him. I also said "hi" to Robin, as he maintained the course. There was a sizable Orwell support contingent present. They gave me lots of morale boosting support.

Being unable to keep up with the big boys was a massive kick in the dick compared to my last road race. Gone were the days of chasing down young lads, demon descending, attacking scratch riders and Top 11 finishes. Here to stay was this square pedaling Luke. I decided to just relax and enjoy it. The bumpy sections had lead to my lower back getting sore. I kept going as it was not as painful as sitting through an episode of "Fear the Walking Dead". My back wasn't the only thing that was going to be sore by the end.

On the fourth lap, I was getting passed by another guy. Maybe he stopped off for a coffee and a dump during the race and was just passing me again. He went under the Willow tree, I ducked to avoid the back-swinging branches. I looked up to see a thin tree moving towards me. Tree Beard struggled with the fame from The Lord of the Rings movies. I had heard rumors that he was lurking around Dublin, but that he was strung out and not looking the best. I almost crashed into Tree Beard. After blurting out "shit, shit, shit" I used my hand to deflect Tree Beard out of my way, or me out of his way. It was pretty hazy. Tree Beard cut me between my thumb and index finder on my left hand. My rear braking and front shifting performance went south pretty quick. It started to get raw on the bumpy sections. I should've worn some gloves. Rookie mistakes were made in the B race. Despite this catastrophic injury, I carried on. I was really enjoying the up and down nature of the lakeside section.

From DC Images' album Fixx Supercross Cup. DC did a great job with the Greens in this image.

Monica was passing me, I didn't put up a fight, as not to impede her. I got lapped near the end of my fifth lap. These three lads whooshed by me. I did move off the racing line to accommodate their space requirements. I thought that that was the end of the race, as did many others. I was waved on. Monica stopped. I was on the back bumpy straight, and I seen a guy with a puncture. "Yeah, I'm not last" I celebrated. The A riders were warming up on the course as I finished. I dropped back my timing chip.

Post Race

I went back to the car and had a scumbag shower. A little toweling down and some deodorant. I was able to get my hair under control, so I didn't need to wear my hat. The Evade gives me a series of mohawks. I watched the A race and talked with Eugene. He was right in saying that I shouldn't be too disappointed as it was my first race. I seen how fast that the A riders were racing the course. This was educational. There was one guy trying to ride the stairs, let's be honest here, this was a Darwin Award level of faggotry on his part. He kept falling off and disrupting the other racers. I'm all for flamboyancy and needless risk taking, but not at the risk of harming other humans. A lad from UCD crashed at the foot of the stairs. He had a sizable gash just below his knee. Blood was streaming down his leg, it was hard to look, and to look away. Is this what Renaissance med students felt like? Luckily there was a guy with a phone who called the MC and a medical car arrived. Hope he's recovering well.

After the A race, we went to Avoca... where I paid €10.50 for a roll and a fucking cappuccino. I paid by card, as I don't carry that much cash on my person. One of the lads in the office is always banging on about Avoca. How we should go to Avoca and get Sushi. He got an earful as soon as he sat down at his desk on Monday. I'll stick to the free canteen food, bud. I gotta make rent this month.

The results were published the following day. I had finished 90th. This was more disappointing than an episode of "The Walking Dead" where Rick doesn't say "CORAL". I was about eight minutes off my pre-race target of 50th place. My bruised ego will be aiming for a Top 75 placing in the next race. Looking at the names further up the placings, some guys are racing A3. A Cinderella performance finishing in a podium might not be happening any time soon, unless...

What Was Learned

I learned a lot. There is loads of low hanging fruit I can improve on. My ability to Sprint out of corners is the focus.

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