Cycling Reports

Noel Hammond Memorial Race

 By Dave Walsh

Ballyboughil - Sunday 29th April , 2001

Perhaps I should have my head examined... I suspect that no signs of intelligence would be found. Nevertheless, whatever is bouncing around in there drove me to the sign-on in Swords, with about four and a half hours sleep dividing my Saturday race from my Sunday race. No good could come from this. I was, however, relatively sanguine as we pushed off down the dual-carriageway - the race was neutralised almost to Ballyboughil. Out of all the neutralised starts this year, this was *definitely* the most civilised.

The course six laps of a 12 mile course around Ballyboughil, with hardly a flat bit of road anywhere. North Dublin, apparently like parts of Belgium (even looks like it in places), has an oxymoronic landscape - it seems generally flat, but has dozens of sneaky hard-man climbs hidden in its countryside.

The B riders were let off 1 minute ahead of the A riders, apparently to give us a chance to get over the Nag's Head. Reading what I just wrote, it sounds like one of those movies where someone's released into the swamps of Louisiana 5 minutes before a pack of bloodthirsty hounds and lunatics with Samurai *katana* swords start chasing them

But, we were off, and a couple of hundred yards in, and attacks were going off, Anthony Doyle booting off in pursuit of two other riders before we even got into the village. So far so good, I was well up, and holding up own as we climbed up the drag through the village, and I was will in a good position as made the first attempt on the Nag's. For those who don't know the ascent, it's a bit of a tramps heartbreak - a long straight undulating climb that's much steeper than a mere drag, but too fast to be a pure climber's bottom ring dream.

I got up it the first time just fine - except that my pulse was way up, and I was doing none of my usual bouncy climbing. Riding up this another five times might hurt. Forty-five mph through Naul, through the switchbacks and up onto that left hand rise, and the pace abated somewhat. Jesus, I thought, the As are only a minute behind us, shouldn't they nearly have us already? There was none of the 25mph massive team-trialing of the day before, instead there was jumping, and stopping and starting. The left hand side of the road was in a terrible state with deep pools of muddy water in them. I was shouting 'Holes!' so much that some guy advised that I get a tape deck for the bike, to save my voice. I did hit one of the holes back between Ballyboughil and the climb hard, and was sure I'd done damage, but the tyre held up, and I tried to stay in the middle of the road, in certain sections. Perhaps we should all start coughing up an extra fiver for each race, to get the roads in order? If 160 riders coughed up £800, it might fill a few holes on the race circuit, and seriously hinder Mavic's lucrative Irish sales. But I digress.

As we zoomed along those crazy little back roads, I was feeling fine, but still I tried to maintain a position again near the front to allow for bad patches. After the series of little short rises on the back roads, there's a turn to the left, and up another small bump - I saw Niall Quinlan on the front doing some orchestration for his Cycleways MAD teammate, Colm Mullen, who went sailing off the front, with another rider in tow. Several other riders followed, and a break developed. I was thinking about the Nag's head, it was coming around again soon... when we got there, it hurt a little more this time too, despite the fact I was sitting pretty near the front of the bunch, in the first ten. Still, 14-15 miles in, and the Senior A riders hadn't caught us... but yellow numbers started appearing before Naul, and as we hit the first hill after the village, Philip Cassidy went motoring through.

The front of the bunch began haemorrhaging riders, with little bunches forming, as we motored through twisting potholed roads. I got boxed in on some the tighter bits, but made up lots of ground as we wound back into Ballyboughil, shooting up along the right-hand side... but the front of the bunch started going to pieces as we tore up through the village, with Ravens rider Joe Magill vanishing up the road in the process. All kinds of messing and splintering went on as we neared the climb, and at the bottom, and truly, I could have done without being in the middle of it all. I was about fourth or fifth in line. Whoever was powering along on the front must have been having a *great* day. I held that position for about three-quarters of the way up, and then I tried to ease off a little, to drop back into the bunch, as I was starting to suffer dangerously. Instead, I effectively lost my rhythm, and couldn't keep any kind of a gear going... and started drifting back, back ... and by the time the descent into Naul, was on my own. Mesmerised, I kept driving on, hoping I could get a chase together with some of the other dropped riders, but we were all over the roads, some were left behind, some went shooting ahead. I had no problem with the descent, except that I got stuck behind two cars cruising down the hill at 40mph, and I couldn't pass them. After the drama of the hills, the out-of-sight-out-of-mind doldrums kicked in, and I had nothing in my legs on the flatter roads. The realisation set in that I was simply knackered. I cruised around the rest of the circuit, turned right in the village, and rode back to Swords for my car, in a cold wind and a foul humour, angry with myself for getting myself into this situation. I was so tired that I had problems even getting my heart rate up to keep warm.

A change of clothes, some coffee and soup at a petrol station sorted me out a little, so I was in marginally better spirits when I parked the car in Ballyboughil, and discovered a rake of 'retired' riders sitting in the cool sunshine waiting for the race, which was now on its last lap, to finish. Now, I didn't feel so bad, there was at least some sense of solidarity to be gained from not being the only one to fade. Everyone has their story about how their race goes to pieces - most unfortunate story I heard was Colm Mullen's - it was his pedal that fallen apart.

The rest documented elsewhere on the site - Cass came roaring out of the last bend, leading out the sprint and winning it well from Paul Healion, who was thumping his handlebars in frustration, as the winner freewheeled through, his arms thrust aloft. Dave Peelo and Mark Sittlington came in 1'20" later, with a pack of chasers on their heels, and then minutes later, another 'bunch' wandered in, a pale shadow of the group I'd been dropped from earlier.

As I drove back out towards the main road, amongst riders heading back to Swords, I had to drive through a stretch of road that was strewn with what seemed like thousands of potatoes. One rider was stopping to pick some up. Whether they were for dinner or for pelting his teammates with it, I have no idea.