When Mandy Collie contacted me way back at the beginning of the year to invite me to ride at the International Women's Bedford 2 Day road race in England I thought what the hey, why not, I've done a few MTB races in England before but never a road race.  I'd enjoyed the Ras na mBan in Kerry with all the women a few years ago so it should be just as much fun!

There would be four of us - myself, Mandy, Amy Brice and Laura Banfield -  heading over under the auspices of Forme/Cyclshack with another guest rider - Iona Sewell - from England making up the 5 (wo)man team.  Between work and the last few weekends of MTB racing I  had very little time to think about the race and did little in the way of finding out about the course with the sole exception of reading the bumf the race organiser emailed us, so it was a quick call to Mandy two days before to check out everything was all good to go and hope for the best.  I suppose the biggest thing I was worried about was the lack of road racing so far this year, none infact if you discount my DNF at Balbriggan at the end of March!

Saturday morning saw me squeeze in a short ride to get dialled into the road bike again before handing it over to Conor who kindly packed it in the bike bag while I got all my gear packed for the lunchtime flight over to Luton.  A quick phonecall to Amy to find out if she wanted a lift in Conor's new "Bike Wagon" and we headed off to the airport.  A fairly relaxed flight over - barring Amy's small issue of being overweight having decided to use a coffin sized hard cased bike box - and we arrived in Luton to be met by Laura, pick  up the car and off to the hotel.   That evening the girls were all nervous about their first road race "abroad" and there was plenty of talk over dinner about tactics and what if's and maybe's, all the while Amy managed to eat the table clean!

Day 1:  Morning TT and Afternoon Road Race.  The first day started with a short team time trial, a bit daunting since we hadn't actually ridden together as a unit before - ever!  Mandy's chat with ex pro Dan Fleeman the night before set us up with a rough plan and after the countdown we tried to keep as steady and clean a pace as possible.  The course was largely flat with a slight "hillock" in the middle which split the team a little but a final hard effort to the finish saw us finish in 12th spot.

The second race of the day started at 1.00pm after a quick trip back to the hotel for some hot drinks and food, unfortunately I seemed to have misjudged my eating and found myself getting hungry on the start line!  Anyway we rolled off from the start "village" for 5 laps of an undulating course which included a couple of short kicker climbs but nothing too challenging.  From the start it was clear my lack of experience of large group riding was going to prove problematic, constantly feeling "squeezed" of personal space and constantly being squeezed in a pincer movement from both sides towards the back of the group.  The only way to counteract this was to try and move up the outside of the group towards the front in rotating basis, something which was proving hard given that we were riding on open roads and the entire bunch seemed to want to be a the front, the amount of times on the first lap we came round a corner to be faced with an oncoming car was scary to say the least!  The bunch was also incredibly nervey, braking constantly at every little slow-down or corner and sure enough just into the second lap there was a large crash just off the right side of my front wheel - i think someone hit a cat eye on the road a bit wonky and lost control.  Luckily I managed not to get caught up just missing a fallen bike infront of me, but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew some of our riders had been caught up and I just hoped they would be OK.  Sure enough I later found out both Mandy and Amy had come down, Amy needing to go to hospital to get her elbow checked out.  That left myself, Laura and Iona to finish with the main group, which after losing about half the rest of the field settled into a more relaxed - or should I say less nervey - state of racing, the main teams pulling hard on the front and surging out of the corners.  All very comfortable I settled into the race keeping within the top 20 or so and started to enjoy things until half way round Lap 3 "rumble rumble rumble" puncture AGAIN!  Got a new wheel from the service car and tried my hardest to get back on making my way up through the support vehicles.  Unfortunately I rode way too hard & too quick and with only a few metres to go to get back on we reached the only "hill" of the day on the last lap of the hill sprint and just as the riders picked up the pace and kicked up, I blew!  Game over!  Only thing left to do was limit the time loss and TT round another lap or until another group came up, which they did with half a lap to go.  Iona and Laura finished really well just 18secs off the winner on the day - Well done!  I finished a disappointing 7mins down kicking myself for not checking my tyres before leaving home.  Not only that but I had ridden myself empty trying to chase around the course and it took a bottle of recovery drink, a massive sandwich and a bacon bap before my stomach stopped hurting!

Day 2:  Morning TT and Afternoon Road Race.   After what can only be described as the biggest dinner ever - eye and bellies girls! - and not much sleep Day 2 came round way too quickly.  I was kind of subdued after yesterday's disaster of a day and not looking forward to racing round a car testing track in the wet and windy weather which was promised.  Riding myself empty also meant my legs weren't in great shape, something which always plays in the back of your head going into a race.  
Breakfast over and we headed out to the race track to be met with high winds and threatening skies.  The morning TT was nice and short, only 3km.  Mandy and Amy set out first - Amy smarting after her crash the day before but grinning and bearing all the way round - after which myself and Laura set out 10minutes apart.  First half of the course was wind assisted so REALLY fast until we turned around the bowl into a leg burning brick wall of a headwind for about 1km.  The final km was a full-on wind assisted blast back to the finish line - 5mins04 secs, 41 secs off the winner.  I stuck around for Laura's lap eager to give her that little bit of encouragement which is always welcome to anyone riding hard - great riding with a top 20 placing for Laura!  

After a quick race back to the hotel to collect our bags we lined up in the wet and windy weather for the second race of the day (this time I managed not to let the hunger take over) to be told that the race would be shortened by a lap due to the weather conditions, I dont think anyone was going to complain about that.  So 8 laps of the Millbrook Vehicle testing track including the 3km oval and out around the surrounding ancillary roads including a couple of quick tight wee hills - yeah!!  First lap round the bowl was quick enough, people getting their legs going and positioning sorted, again finding myself being sucked backwards through the bunch I decided out the side and up front best option, easier today was we were on a closed circuit.  Leaving the bowl we had a couple of roundabouts to negotiate before descending towards a tight 1km climb followed by a steep descent into a right had corner and a short steep kicker leading to a super fast sweeping descent - fun but scary in the wet, some of the girls were soo fast! - more roundabouts and back into the bowl where the pace promptly dropped to not quite walking pace.  And so that set the scene for the day, tempo round the bowl, work hard on the climb, bomb the descents and repeat.  The pace in the bowl section was a bit frustrating but the headwind was too much to deal with on your own so can't really complain.  Everytime we hit the back section of the course with the hills and descents we would drop riders along the way, only for them to catch up in the bowl again - whats that all about?!!  I contemplated trying to break off the front on the hill but my legs weren't playing ball.  Last lap saw the rain come back in and between wet gear and the wind, the legs were starting to seize up making the climbing difficult and brain freeze was also setting in, however I managed to keep within the top 20 enjoying the little energy I had left for the sprint at the end of the race.  Fair play to Elinor Barker and overall winner Ciara Horne for staying away from the bunch in that wind!   The other girls made a strong showing coming in 9mins later, Laura plagued with mechanical problems and Amy hurting from the crash the day before.  

The team did well for what was for all the others their first race in the UK, despite crashes, punctures and mechanicals.  A big thanks to Steve?? who kindly offered his neutral service services for the weekend and for Mandy for organising the whole trip.  I think the biggest thing to come out of it was to show the Irish riders that the level in competition between UK and Ireland isn't that big a gap.   For myself I'm still not sure if I "get" the whole road racing thing, certainly don't seem to need to work as hard as in a MTB race and it takes an interesting course - read one with hills, corners, descents etc - in order to actually enjoy the event.   Back to MTB racing for the near future I think and looking forward to the 2012 Breck Epic

Weekend no.3 and it was down to Dundalk direction for the first race of the Irish XC national league.  Unfortunately my jeep engine decided to blow up mid week on my way down to Navan so it was lastminute.com on Saturday that I was able to finally get round to thinking about the race in general.  On the plus side our new sports nutrition sponsor High Five had sent up a nice delivery of products for us to get our teeth into racing and training on. 
For some obscure reason I managed not to get to sleep on Saturday night - yet again before race day, what is this all about?!  So was glad that racing wasn't scheduled to start till 2pm.  We packed Conor's van up and headed down to a wild and windy Bellurgan Park and set out for practice.  The course was pretty much unchanged from the previous year with the sole exception of taking out the fun twisty technical climb at the start,  that the gap jump was filled in with palettes and certain sections of the course were "weather proofed" with gravel, oh yeah and a table top and double berm section put in near the end of the lap for a bit of dual action fun ;-).  I would be racing S1 women with five other starters including Claire Oakley and Orla McClean who has been riding really strongly so far this year.  Conor signed up for the S3 mens race which would be 3 laps of the course.

In a change from the 2011 race format we women were set off separately from the S2 men, before them, meaning technically a better chance of racing within our category.  All good in theory since I found myself held back last year by some of the slower S2 men on the climbs.   So just after 1.30 we were set off at warp speed.  Not knowing what kind of form Orla was in - Claire kindly informed me that her legs were "dead" after riding a road race the day before - I decided to do as fast a first lap as possible and take it from there.  Thankfully the plan worked, although left me a tad tired after, but enough of a gap to ride through the rest of the race at comfortable enough pace.  Unfortunately my legs were still carrying a bit of fatigue from last weekend so as the leading S2 men came through I couldn't hold on to them as much as I would have hoped, leaving me effectively in no man's land until the last lap.  Kind of hard to keep the intensity and pace up racing yourself!  The course was brilliant, a horrible bumpy lumpy climb on a double track to start with which made finding a pedaling rhythm difficult and an even more painful singletrack climb to the drop off descent, and you were then rewarded with 3 - 4km of sweet singletrack.  Despite the rotten cold and damp weather the trails remained dry, fast and flowing.   So the first NPS race done and dusted, a shame Mel Spath was out with sickness to give me something to aim for but a win is a win and cant argue with that!  Conor punctured AGAIN and crashed out - ok Mr Mechanic need to sort that out!  
Well done to Cuchulainn CC and their race organisation, the warm food was VERY welcome afterwards!

The road race at the beginning of April really whetted my appetite for starting racing proper.  As it was the mtb race calender was looking a little thin with the cancellation of the first round of the Irish XC National Series and for road racing up north you have to be super organised these days as they are all pre-entry given that numbers are limited to 60 per race.  A good scan of the island wide race calender and a quick plan was formed, race my little ass off right up to the weekend of the Bedford 3 day, four weekends -  two stage races and two cross country races, nothing like a little bit of work to get yourself into the swing of things ;-)

The weekend of the cancelled NPS race and the Ulster XC league managed to squeeze in a local race at Ballykelly Forest near Derry, a venue which I remember last racing over 10 years ago - talk about making yourself feel old!
It was a bit of a toss up between doing another road race or this xc race, mtb won of course, no point in being a mtb rider if you don't turn up to the races!  Weather looked good, course promised to be as great as I remembered it to be so off I set, Conor opting to do a day family stuff.  Practice lap confirmed a great course, a good mix of hard short steep fire road climbs linking loads of fantastic technical singletrack.  Claire Oakley was the main and unfortunately only competition on the day, herself just getting back into form after being plagued with poor health until recently, otherwise it was pick a couple of the S2 men to race and see how it goes.  At 1.30 we lined up with the S2 men and were set off at blistering pace up a horrible short sharp hill.  Ouch that hurt!  Not only did my body not remember how awfully painfully fast the start of an XC race is, my legs were none too happy after a hard week of training - burn burn burn within 5 secs.  The first 50m up that hill were mental torture, I had to let off the gas a little and even contemplated packing it in as I watched Claire eek a gap.  But NO damn it, I drove over an hour, paid my entry fee I was gonna do this race even if it killed me!   I caught up with Claire again in the singletrack only to stupidly follow her line and got tangled up in an old fallen tree hidden within the longer grass, chase it was again then so - grrr.   Again I caught up with Claire and followed her out onto the next fire road kicker of a climb, only to hear her crunch her way through her gears as I passed.  I wasn't aware that she was having shifting problems and would eventually pull out, but I continued on eager to catch up with the next person ahead of me and keep those behind away.  Over the next 3 laps I slowly made up a few of places on the men's race, having a good yo yo with Eamon McConvey and eventually passing a couple of other riders.  The pure pain on the climbs was difficult and I could feel the laps getting a tad slower but the singletrack was phenomenal, total concentration to keep smooth and fast, so much fun!  The best courses are the ones where the enjoyment of riding the trail way outweighs the pain of racing and this one hit the mark! 
So first XC race done, just as well too cause if I had left that to the first NPS god knows what kind of shock to the system that would have been!   Well done to Lifford-Strabane CC and Clive Caldwell for a brilliant race.

Ideally the weekend of 22nd/23rd April was to be a trip back to the British XC Series at our favorite Dalby venue, however work commitments meant no time for the extra day off required for the long trip over so I mustered a few fellow mtb endurance mates together and we all signed up for the 2 Day Lough Derg Challenge race held around the scenic Lough Derg lake at Killaloe/Ballina Co Clare.  This was the second year it was run and having had good reports from the previous year sounded like a good weekend away mixing some cool racing and a bit of craic.
So somewhat later than planned on Friday evening we set off for the 3 - 4 hour drive down the road to meet up with Darragh & Mel at our rented house for the weekend arriving late.

Saturday saw us up and early to sign on and get our race numbers, timing chips and goodie bag.  The format of the weekend would be two stages a day consisting of two shortish Saturday stages, a longer sunday morning stage and a time trial stage to finish off on Sunday afternoon.  Kind of a strange set up I thought, being more used to the longer one stage a day kind of race format, not too sure how the motivation to get back out there after lunch was going to work....

Stage 1 23km 500m climbing.   Stage 1 set off in the small village of Killaloe with a "neutralised" start, unfortunately it was far form neutralised as the cop car didnt seem to understand how fast - or slow in my case - bikes go!  So after getting stuck at the rear end of the pack intending on moving up as we "rolled out" I saw the lead guys disappear into the distance and the chasing started almost immediately, didnt even get time to see where Conor was!   The first 5km was a horrible climb up through small local roads until we reached some forest dirt track, as with last weekend my legs and hips seemed to be feeling some really bad fatigue when pushed hard coupled with the most awful stomach cramps - too many rides up Cavehill in the recent good weather perhaps - whatever the issue this wasn't good and I struggled up the road section with Darragh egging me on with a "ha ha I'm gonna make you work hard for this".  When we hit the first dirt track, a real rocky section of technical climbing I forgot about all the pain - you see good trails do keep your mind off things ;-) - and started picking my way through riders again, that is until we hit the open fire road again and back to hurting - booo!  With not much more technical riding I relied on fellow racer Cormac Power to help me keep my mind off things - thanks Cormac, and we rode together for a few more kms until a section of flat fireroad where I just couldnt get my legs to work at all against the now quite stong headwind, so off went Cormac and after a few mins Darragh came flying past WTF!!    The last few kms to the finish were a case of damage limitation and hoping that I wasnt in such bad shape that I would have to work too hard in the afternoon.  And so it finished 1hr13, 31st position overall and only a few seconds ahead of second place female rider Emma Walsh.   Gotta figure out what on earth was going on with my legs over lunch, and see if putting a new bike seat on had anything to do with it.....  Conor came in about 10mins later not too happy after starting off really well only to punture on one of the descents loosing a load of time.  Better luck next time for Team Summit eh?!

Stage 2 16km 490m climbing. After lunch all the racers gathered again at the start of Stage 2 in the centre of Killaloe.  Funnily enough after the effort of the morning I was starting to feel a little better and my legs felt somewhat "flushd out" so I was looking forward to the afternoon stage with a little intrepidation as I looked like a killer climb up a steep mountain track to the TV/Radio masts one of the highest vantage points in the local landscape.   Conor was looking forward to try and make up some lost time after his puncture in the morning's stage so as we lined up at the start it was all about the afternoon's session and going for all we had.  As we rolled off the start line, the pace up the local roads this time wasn't as full on as the morning, leaving a little more time to warm into the climb.  This time I placed myself at the front with the leading men and again Cormac rode with me for a good while up the initial road climb, and although my legs and hips were still prone to cramping as we climbed towards the off road tracks things were feeling a little better than the morning's stage.  The climb up to the mast was epic, first off a 5km drag up a 6% climb just twiddling away as hard as possible, trying to keep the stomach cramps at bay and stay in contact with other riders. Eventually I caught up with Cormac again and a few of the other male riders who I know from XC racing - and I could still see super vet rider Aidan McDonald up ahead on the climb which was cool - and we yo yo'd positions as we reached the first "summit" before a short 1km blast downhill and the final kick up to the summit proper.  That final kick up was not entirely expected and had some REALLY steep sections which needed massive efforts to get over, not easy after 30mins of constant climbing before hand.  After the summit we hit a 3km descent which effectively shot us vertically back down the mountain along the Clare Way.  I sheepishly rode these sections as my brakes had been acting up after getting a "service" from a certain large bike chain store the week previously, meaning yet again I lost a few of the hard earned places I got on the climb.  The last few km's I was out on my own and flat, not much fun against the wind again but I managed to make up some time compared to the morning's session coming in 21st overall and 2mins ahead of second placed female Meave O Grady.  Conor rocked up 10minutes later in the middle of a torrential April shower, head shaking and frustrated after getting yet ANOTHER puncture. 
Leaving Conor, Darragh and Cormac to ride the last 10km road section back to Killaloe I took a spin back with fellow racer Ritchie Felle who was second on the men's category and who would be sharing the house with us that evening - gassing along at a great old pace chatting about racing and battle field archaeology of all things!!!

That evening Conor tried a little bike tinkering in an attempt to put a stop to his constant front wheel puncturing and also try and get my back brake to relax off the disc as the calipers seemed to be constantly rubbing before we headed into town for some much needed pub grub.

Stage 3 27.5km 490m climbing.  Sunday morning woke to a bright sunny day and legs which were a little tired.  We all gathered ourselves together for the short spin up to the start of Stage 3 a few km to the north of Killaloe within Ballycuggarran Forest.  Everyone was in great form as we lined up at the start, looking forward to a second day of hard fast racing.  At 10am we were set off up a sharp fire road climb and to my surprise was able to stay with the top 10 men for the first km or so.  Eventually however the legs started to feel yesterday's efforts and again I lost my mojo on the flat sections against the head wind - hmm must work on that flat bike riding for future reference....  and I lost contact with the faster men.  I found myself riding alone for a good part of the race until we hit this almighty boggy section, shin deep in mud where I slowed to almost walking pace not able to get a clean line along it, and yet AGAIN lost places to the more ballsy men.  The second half of the race was a bit of a drag and between the weather closing in, the cold and tired legs became a bit of a slog.  I would always make up plenty of time and places on any of the climbs but riding solo for the last half hour or so was a bit demoralising,  Eventually we hit the forest again and it was a great descent back to the finish, again coming in 21st overall and 4mins ahead of second placed female rider Meave.  Conor had a much better race this time, puncture free and finishing only 8mins later, making up a load of places in GC.  Darragh was also nipping at my heels and it would be a challenge to keep him at bay on the afternoon's time trial as it was a local favorite of his and required alot of technical skills to ride fast.

Stage 4 5km 165m climbing.  So the final stage had arrived, a 5km time trial around a lap of the old XC NPS course.  I had ridden this twice before and knew it would be a hard session with a steep climb to start and some tricky technical riding in the forest, especially since the recent April showers were going to make the roots deadly slippy.  We were set off in pairs at 30sec intervals and I was off on about 10th wave.  As I lined up my TT partner took one look and said "oh no not you, I have no chance on that climb!" - thanks! was that a compliment or not!!  At the 10 sec count down we put our best race heads on and BANG off up the hill.  I remember this first part from a couple of years ago, a horrible, steep 1.3km climb with an average gradient of 10% - ouch!  Despite screaming legs - SHUT UP LEGS! - I managed to make up the 30secs on the riders infront and caught up with Eamon McConvey who had set off 1min ahead.  We hit the singletrack together and thinking he would be a better technical rider didnt push through to the front - slight mistake there, sorry Eamon, but I was acutally caught up behind him a little as he struggled with the wet rooty sections.  He eventually let me pass and I bombed down a lovely section of dry technical singletrack before entering out onto open fire road.  The last section of the course contained some tricky gully descents and in a moment of nervousness after not pre-riding the course, I hit a rock and BURP front tire lost air, I tried riding on it again but yet again BURP - more air lost.  With no canister I ended up running the last 300m which felt like 3km, gosh its hard to run on dead legs!  I made it back in 17th place despite losing a load of time, Darragh just pipping me to 16th by 20secs.  Conor didnt have a brilliant ride, crashing on a technical section but still made it back in one piece.

So overall I managed to keep the women's overall lead and Conor kept his position mid pack despite two punctures and a rotten crash, his third stage proving that once mechanical and accident free he was able to hold his own on the day.  PLUS he won the raffle for the single speed hipster bike.  We had an absolutely fantastic weekend of racing, and while the courses might be described as more "off road road racing" than MTB'ing in the true sense, the atmosphere was friendly, relaxed and so with much craic, one of the best races I've been to in a while.  That evening Darragh took us to a fantastic little cafe/restaurant in town which served  lovely homemade food from local producers and had the most amazing cake and bun selection - those Tiffins are deadly! 

I'd forgive anyone for thinking that I had given up racing altogether for 2012.  For some reason - well down to the fact that I've now been working on sites around the country nearly solidly since the beginning of November and a lack of sorting the extortionately priced Cycling Ireland race licence out - by the time the end of March had arrived I had yet to get my ass in gear and do a race of any format.

All my road buddies have been racing their little legs off since the end of February, while I missed the XMTB "Winter MTB League", two Biking Blitz MTB races and Robin Seymour's new MTB venue in Wicklow.  So what on earth was I doing all this "training" for??  Mild worry was also settling in because I had taken up an offer to ride the Bedford 2 Day women's stage race at the beginning of May as a guest on the Forme Coaching team headed by Mandy Collie.  A quick review of the race calender on the Cycling Ireland website and a couple of text messages to the road girls who I would be riding Bedford with and I had booked myself for the first race of the season (for me anyway) the Ben McKenna Memorial near Balbriggan.

I had arranged with Amy Brice to get a lift down and back as we both live in the same part of Belfast.  Race morning arrived to me being rudely awakened by the phone ringing - DAMN IT! Amy was sitting outside the house and I had missed my alarm!!  Nice start to the season - NOT!    After refusing to leave me Amy waited patiently while I rushed around the house sorting out a take-away breakfast, bike clothes, bike, food.... thanks to Conor I was out the door in 15mins sitting in the little Citroen wandering what had hit me!   The hour and a bit drive down gave me plenty of time to wake up and sort my head out.

We arrived with about 20mins to spare to find a good group of other girls had signed up including Mandy and Tonya Moran two other northern riders - not massive but at least 10 of us rolled out along the neutral start.  A bit of confusion between the pacing motorbike and not knowing exactly where we were to start meant we kind of bombed up the first hill only to discover we were actually starting at the top - oops..  Eventually we got started setting off at pace, speeding down a long gradual hill.  The pace of the group yo yo'ed about, quite frequently I would find myself at the front, a little impatient with the slow progress of the bunch and equally finding no one else wanting to come through.  Every so often someone would bomb out the front and a chase ensued.   I paced at the front for a while but worried about burning out knowing that there were plenty of people behind who were twiddling along just waiting to pounce i tried to back things off as best as possible.  The second half of the first lap threw up some tight little kickers of hills and the pace went up and the proper racing began - yeah!  We were dragged along up the hills at pace by Fran Meehan and the racing was starting to get interesting.  As we rounded for Lap 2 we hit a steep and incredibly fast descent on a pretty dirty and bumpy road.  As I bombed down with the other leading women I heard a small pop and then "rumble rumble rumble"  NOW WAY feckin puncture DAMN IT!!!  With no support and no hope of changing a puncture in quick enough time to chase and catch up it was race over mid way.  Such a disappointment just as the racing was starting to get interesting and was really enjoying the prospect of trying to get into the thick of the action.  As it was I hooked up with Aideen who wasnt feeling the bike love on the day and we made our way round to watch the sprint finish, won by Amy herself!
So first race done and dusted, not particularly the way I would have liked it but done nonetheless, I enjoyed the bit of racing I got and well done to Amy on her win and thanks for dragging my lazy ass out of bed and for the lift down and back :-)