OT -Race around Ireland NOW WITH LINK

tailwindhome

Not entirely off topic as this years inagural Race around Ireland included my commute to work (along the shore of Lough Foyle), though at 7.30am they passed me after riding all night and already with several hundred miles in their legs.

Local man Joe Barr, a former Pro and Irish cycling legend, came out of retirement to raise funds for the NI Cancer Fund for Ireland and compete with the best ultracycling had to offer.


The race took in all the major Irish landmarks in a 4 day non stop 1350 mile loop, including Mamore Gap and the brutal climb of St Patrick's Hill in Cork (the one LA and Cav quit instead of climbing on the Tour of Ireland)

"I think it's a fine line between someone being very good at something and insanity," acknowledges Barr

WATCH IT HERE


If you have half an hour to kill before you go home you really should watch!

mcmullej

I cycled from Mallow to Cork city last week on a rickety old single speed. Near the end, I passed along the foot of Patrick's Hill.

I had thought about giving it a go. But then I saw it. The foothpath alongside is stepped. It gets steeper near the top. It's just a ridiculous hill to see in an urban setting.

No chance. Not a hope in hell of getting up that.

Seriously doubt whether I'd manage it on my roadie. Maybe one day....

OldSkoolKona

Thanks for the prompt WheezyMcC - will have to get the folks to tape it.

On a slightly related subject, do any of the NI Commuters know of what Sportives go on over there? Was planning on doing one with some friends and use it to raise some sponsorship money in memory of a close friend who passed away earlier this year with cancer and wondered what was out there.

don_don

Would definitely like to see that on iPlayer Wheezy, if you could let us know.

Cheers

Eau Rouge

Being a native of Cork City, I know Patricks Hill pretty well. I'd actually been up it on my 5-speed a couple of times on my way home from work when I was a student years ago.
Having been partly inspired to return to cycling by watching the Tour of Ireland from Patrick's Hill in 2008, I made sure I took my bike back with me this summer.
The finished circuit the Tour uses around the city passes passes by my parents house, so the couple of local rides I did ended up joining that circuit and completing the loop back to my parents.
Patricks Hill is all they say it is, but it's not all that long. The catch is the rest of that circuit has many hills that are just as nasty, followed by hairy decents, made all the more fun by having school-home-run traffic on them. Climbing the same hills the Pro's had wimped out of a few weeks earlier was massively enjoyable though. You have a sharp climb just before Patricks Hill, then the hill itself, followed by a very technical decent, a few traffic lights and just as you begin to recover from Patrick; Hill, you're at the bottom of the long drag up to the bottom of Fair Hill, which is steep at the bottom, and goes on and on and on. It's where you pay for your great climb on Patricks Hill.
Throw in the school run traffic completely blocking all traffic (had to stop 3 times on one run) and you really would think you'd cruise down the other side and home, but the road is wide, freshly resurfaced and that MPV in front has school kids making faces. Mum might be doing 30mph, but I know I can be faster down here.
Oh the fun.

tailwindhome

In their infinite wisdom the folks at iplayer have decided not to make the programme available. :twisted:

It was one of the most inspirational things I've ever watched.

1350miles in 4days with only 4 hours sleep. The last 300 odd miles, including St Patricks Hill and the Wicklow mountains, with a broken bone in his foot caused by his own team car.

At one point he tells his crew that he can feel the broken bone moving in his foot as he is climbing :shock:

Wallace1492

Twas a superb bit of TV, very inspiring, and he put in a fine effort that a mere mortal like me can only watch open mouthed.

He really was worthy of winning it, and so much more. The dedication, effort and mental hardness was of truely awesome proportions. It is something I would never be capable of, but what he went through before it must have been horrendous as well.

Thanks Wheezy for bringing it to everyone's attention, as it was simply superb.
Have Sky+ it and will watch again.

tailwindhome

Friendly Bump -Link added

tailwindhome

OldSkoolKona wrote:

On a slightly related subject, do any of the NI Commuters know of what Sportives go on over there? Was planning on doing one with some friends and use it to raise some sponsorship money in memory of a close friend who passed away earlier this year with cancer and wondered what was out there

2010 Cycling Ireland Calender

This is a dog's dinner of a spreadsheet, you may want to cut and paste it into a new worksheet to sort it by date, province or whatever

There are 3 tabs on in the workbook, you're looking for the leisure tab

EDIT correcting link

EDIT Girv73 from round these parts did a couple last year his blog link below

Lap the Lough

Bangor Coastal Challenge

OldSkoolKona

WheezyMcChubby wrote:

OldSkoolKona wrote:

On a slightly related subject, do any of the NI Commuters know of what Sportives go on over there? Was planning on doing one with some friends and use it to raise some sponsorship money in memory of a close friend who passed away earlier this year with cancer and wondered what was out there

2010 Cycling Ireland Calender

This is a dog's dinner of a spreadsheet, you may want to cut and paste it into a new worksheet to sort it by date, province or whatever

There are 3 tabs on in the workbook, you're looking for the leisure tab

EDIT correcting link

EDIT Girv73 from round these parts did a couple last year his blog link below

Lap the Lough

Bangor Coastal Challenge

WMcC

Many thanks for the linky,much appreciated. Some good rides in there, will have to see which one to go for.

emtroche

Just to let you all know, the documentary about Joe Barr will be repeated tomorrow night (Tuesday 15th Dec) at 10pm on BBC2 Northern Ireland. It's well worth a watch for anyone that missed it.

You should also check out our new look website www.racearoundireland.com

don_don

Just watched this on the BBC web-link. OMG!

I hadn't realised just how big a team is needed to pull something like that off, not to mention 300 miles with a broken foot...

I hope he wins the next RAAM. Go Joe

tailwindhome

I presume you are the Roche who organised the whole thing. Well Done! As you may have gathered from this thread the event really caught my imagination this summer.

Can I suggest that one area you could improve on is the 'live coverage' on the net, more frequent posts on the website and on twitter of the race in progress would have been great.

Bit disappointing that cycling websites and forums did not give the race more coverage, but there you go.

Will Joe Barr be defending his title?

Check out Fabios website, he's still leading after TS12

emtroche

don_don wrote:

I hadn't realised just how big a team is needed to pull something like that off

To be honest you dont need a team that big. Joe himself even admitted afterwards that he probably had too many people.

Yeah i helped organize it. Was just one of a group though. We were lucky to get some great positive people on board.

The live coverage should be a lot better next year. It was very disapointing the way things turned out in that regard this year. It was a learning curve for a all of us. We'll be a bit wiser next year! Hopefully!

With regard to the cycling websites, i think thats something else we have to try harder with. It's funny but we actually seemed to have more interest from triathlon and adventure racing areas.

And as far as i know Joe will be back to defend his title in 2010!

pcorbally

For anyone who missed the programme here's a link to it I found on the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_s ... 407980.stm

OldSkoolKona

pcorbally, thanks for the link.

Just watched it and really recommend everyone to have a look. Its amazing on so many levels, the emotion of what motivated him to do it, the inspiration he took from his son's battle with cancer and watching him cycle up St Patrick's Hill with a broken foot!

You can donate to the charity he was fund raising for - http://www.justgiving.com/joebarr-racearoundireland

Worth a few pennies for his effort

prawny

Watched it the other night, what a hero.

My son is about his son's age and I was welling up all the way through.

How many bikes did he use though! :shock:

Also what was that crap he was eating it looked like the stuff from the matrix bleugh!