2006 Index
2006 Good start for Swords riders! by Hugh Byrne February 26/27th 2006
Training the Italian way! Hello from Sardinia by Gearoid Loughnane March 7th 2006
Solo win in Jazzer Wherity Memorial by Kevin Donagher April 2nd 2006
Bertoni Gorey 3-Day by Hugh Byrne April 15-17th 2006
Giro di costa Smeralda - North East Sardinia by Gearoid Loughnane May 2006
Red head at 40 degrees ! (Sardinia )by Gearoid Loughnane June 2006
Wed 12th - Results Round-up by Conor, Bernie & Hugh July 2006
Terry Dolan National Track C/ship : Sprint by Hugh Byrne August 26th 2006
Swords Ladies in Ras na mBan by Bernie McNally September 9/10th 2006
Track Comission Trip to Revolution 14 by Hugh Byrne November 18th 2006

Track Comission Trip to Revolution 14 November 18th, 2006,
Report & Press Release by Hugh Byrne
Last weeks trip included 4 riders from Swords including Colm Sevatapulo who had been in Manchester from the previous evening to partake in the Velodrome Track League and rode who rode with some distinction taking a win in the 1km dash. Apart from myself we also had Stephen & Sean Halpin on the trip. Neither Sean or I had ever ridden on the boards before and infact Sean had never even ridden a track bike at all. Despite this we all had a go on the Sunday morning and managed to get around and stay upright!

Press Release: Last weekend saw a busload of 30 Irish Track riders descend upon the Olympic size Manchester Velodrome to bear witness to the ‘best of the best’ of track take on an invited selection of Pro Tour road riders in a myriad of races featuring both endurance and adrenalin charged sprinting and with a full support card from the Junior Stars of the Future. Revolution 14 was a breath taking action packed night with 3 hours of non stop excitement.

The evening started with an Italian Pursuit featuring the Pro Tour stars. Two teams of 7 lined out on opposite sides of the track, with double Giro Winner, Gilberto Simoni leading out the team in the home straight. Perhaps unwisely the back straight team chose sprinter, Jimmy Casper to lead them out and he set off at a blistering pace which O’Loughlin could match but seemed to catch Discovery rider Yaroslav Popovych,who was placed third in the line out, by surprise. One by one the riders peeled off until Australian Sprint Ace Bradley McGee, gave his namesake Bradley Wiggins the perfect lead out to take the win for Simoni’s team against David Millar.

Next event up was a 200 metre TT as part of the Girls sprint Omnium. One by one the ladies set a flying 200 time with times in the mid 12’s until GBs Lucy Ayres set an electric 12.114 . But the best was yet to come when the final rider, World Junior Keirin Champion, Anna Blyth, blew everyone away with a blistering 11.59 to a raptourous reception from the sell out crowd of 3600. Indeed for the first time in its history, although always attracting large crowds, the Revolution Series was completely sold out. Surely the £10 admission must represent superb value for money!

Race followed race with hardly a pause in the action with points races, devils, 3 up sprints. There was also a 4 station pursuit featuring featuring O’Loughlan, McGee, Miller & Wiggins. McGee made serious inroads into Miller but O’Loughlan was closing on him ever so slightly and won by the narrowest of margins. A fine result for the rider against opposition with a lot more experience of the track.

Most impressive rider on the night was Anna Blyth, who followed up her superb 200 TT with flawless domination in the Girls Sprint Heats. Also a special mention German, Sprinter Tobias Wachter who rolled his tyre on the final bend but carried on sprinting. The evening finished with an epic 60 lap Elite Scratch Race with the riders strung out as the pace went up and up. After Miller split the field, Bradley Wiggins and Roger Hammond broke free in the closing laps until a third rider caught and passed them. Indeed it seemed to be down to the three of them until Adam Blythe seemed to come from nowhere to burst through for victory. And so an evening of 3 hours Racing ended as it started with breath taking excitement. Now early to bed for tomorrow it would be our turn to ride on the hallowed ground!

Many thanks to Will Byrne and Track Commission for organising what everyone agreed was a fantastic trip! Depending upon funding, the Track Commission hopes to organise similar outings in the future for anyone interested. If you would like to be kept informed of forthcoming Track events or get involved in Track Cycling, please contact Hugh Byrne, Tel: 086-3488708, E-mail: hugh66@eircom.net.

For a full report and results from Revolution 14, please see www.britishcycling.org.uk or www.cyclingrevolution.com

Swords Ladies in Ras na mBan September 9/10th 2006
Report from Bernie McNally
After weeks of practising throwing the hands in the air (using a pair of stabilsers in the front garden) for when we passed the finish line with the other girls sprawled out behind us, we were ready to take on the ladies 2 Day 'Ras na mBan' . Some gentle coaxing by manager Pat Halpin ensured that we all got to the start line on time with enough Power Bars and Gels to keep a donkey awake for three days. We had three stages to complete, a 60k crit, a 2k time trial and a 72k road race. The race was neutralised though Balbriggan, where some lads thought they were seeing things, 70 tanned girls in tight lycra whizzing through the town. We were off at the Huntsman pub where things heated up after a guided tour of the potholes of the first lap. I lost contact pretty early in the race, with the rest of the girls, Coleen, Emma, Norah and Caroline still with the bunch for the next few laps. I had decided that the pressure was too much and retired to a more leisurely pace with a group of girls, politely roaring at everyone to get up and over and do some work

With two laps to go there was a bad crash, Coleen and Emma took the softer option of landing on the bank and on top of Valerie, before scrambling up and away again. Coleen discovered that alas, her chain was off, and frightened some poor random punter into fixing her chain with a roar of 'where's my f******n support?' Some other scared lad even gave her a push off. Thankfully no nails were broken in the incident. Caroline had avoided the smash by swerving to the left, Norah managed to avoid it too. Caroline had a great finish in the bunch with Emma, Coleen and Norah not far behind. Back to the sports complex for massages and grub and then it was time for the 2k time trial up the hill with thoughts running through our heads 'why are we doing this? 'Team dinner that night in Skerries where management did not object to the team members having a few well deserved glasses of wine.

We had been betrayed by a certain member of the club who decided to assist another team. We wondered why until after the finish of stage 1, the ladies in question decided they were too hot and whipped everything off at the finish. Swords ladies being a bit more modest and waited until they got back to the shelter of the sports complex. The national flag of the team in question had been hanging out the back of the team car window, to be later blown off, clocking a few girls in the process, driven over by 2 cars and then had to be rescued by the manager's assistant. We did not mention the war. Back through Balbriggan for stage 3 where we decided to head off with the A's at the last minute , forfitted our chance of kicking ass in the B race (good call by Emma). I managed to stick with them until Ardcath with the others faring much better and hanging in over the lovely Naul hill. I was joined by Siobhan from Lakeside Wheelers and a German girl. Working together we got to the finish ok, just a few minutes behind the others. A certain Mr Rock was disappointed that there was no pucking at the finish. Grace (camerawoman extraordinaire) nearly got ran over while trying to capture the finish from the hard shoulder, avoiding a crash by a nimble hop into the ditch. <Photos from Hill Climb>

What better way to recover after two days of hard slogging on the bike than head into town for a few drinks and a Ceili. Excellent trad music, a buffet and we danced and danced until we could dance (or move) no more, proving that we could give Riverdance a run for their money.

Poor Oliver Mc Kenna, arrived to the ceili a wee bit pale, shocked at the language on the tape while playing it from the comfort of his living room. 'Bernie get up the f*****n group NOW!'. He muted it for the ladies on the bus to watch on the way into town. Grace made up for the language by capturing a horse frolicking in a meadow while waiting on the bunch to arrive for a prime, having to be dragged away from trying to film a cow calving and to focus at the task in hand.

A big thank you to Pat Halpin, our manager who provided us with a smile and a protein shake at the end of every stage. Alister Cole, team mechanic/maniac, who took care of the bikes. To Stephen Mc Kenna, who was there when we needed him. To Valerie and Louis for organising a great weekend and a great race, maybe they can organise it so that we win next year. A big get well soon to Martina Kelly, who no doubt will be back on the bike soon, attacking those hills and kicking Matt's ass.

The race was won by Stephanie Gronow from RG Charlottenberg, Berlin 2 seconds clear of Louise Moriarty from Moving Ladies who won both Road Stages, and placed 4th in the TT / Hill Climb. Super performance Louise!!!!

Bernie Mc

Wednesday 12th - Results Round-up!
Club League (Conor McGrane )This weeks event clashed with the Monie Nolan in Balscaden, and other riders were flying the clubs colours in the Ladies League at the Boot Inn, the Track League in Sundrive and not forgetting the Junior Tour. 14 signed on conditions warm sunny little wind . Fastest on the night was James Whelan and myself and Jim felt special mention should go to Thomas Duffy on finishing 12th after a fast and difficult race where he had to ride the majority on his own. John Leonard and Declan Murray broke clear on the last climb and stayed away to the finish after working well together. Tim Fulcher took the sprint for third after going from a long way out although Kevin McFeely was close behind despite cramping. Jim Callaly, John Ward and Anthony McMahon followed. Many riders attributed the fact that they stayed away to Anto’s encouragement and organisation. James Whelan jumped clear from the scratch group at the bottom of the final climb and finished strongly in 8th (fastest on the night although not too much faster than the deserved winner John Leonard, only about 30 seconds)
Ladies League (Bernie McNally) Got on great last night, still waiting on results, Coleen did a fab job, should have won it only went too soon for the finish.. I finished in the leading group and we were never caught by scratch so were delighted. We would love to put a team together for the Ras na mBan, maybe a Swords/Stamullen team. Coleen is looking into it.
Track League (Hugh Byrne) . Still trying to learn the ropes at the track. There seems to be no end to the learning curve as every event requires a different approach! Very enjoyable none the less and all at the track are very supportive. Got my own track bike now and that definitely helps although track bikes are available for loan for anyone who want to give it a go. Colm Sevastapulo took a fall last week (a rarity on the track) but is recovering well. He has a shoulder injury and some road rash but is expecting to be back for the Nationals. He was there last night doing the stopwatch (with his good arm). His girlfriend says he is getting a little grumpy and that's always a sign that we are on the mend!!! Elsewhere, Kevin Donagher placed 2nd B in the Monie Nolan, and Stephen Halpin, riding for the Stenna Ireland Junior Team was third in the opening TT stage of the M Donnelly Junior Tour

Red head at 40 degrees !(Sardinia) June 2006
Report from Gearoid Loughnane
Hugh, here is one on racing at 40 degrees:
Saturday, 26^th of June, 2006
I left my house which is on the coast here in Sardinia to go to the weekly Saturday race at 2:30pm and the car thermometer told me it was 29 degrees which I have gotten used to of late, so I wasn’t worried about racing in this heat. 20 minutes later as I moved inland it was reading 35 degrees (my limit) and another 20 minutes later is was flashing between 40 and 41. Arrived at the sign-on and opened the car door and felt the full blast of 40 degrees and said to myself “spectator” and got back into the car and whacked on the air-con. Just then, a couple of my teammates pulled in beside me and started taking the piss out of me saying I was going soft etc.

I was talked into it and convinced myself that it would be an experience anyway if nothing else and also the course was 5 laps so I had plenty of oppurtunity to pull out thinking to myself that myabe I would get 2 laps in.

I had brought 5 litres of water and a few cokes so was ok for hydration and I had been drinking for the previous hour. I drank about 2 litres before the race and 2 cokes but a strange thing I noticed was that I never felt the need to go to the toilet which meant my body was absorbing close to 100% of the liquid. In Ireland I would have to stop drinking at least a half hour before the race started to avoid having to go during the race. The water for the race had to be left in an ice bag right up to 5 minutes before the start as that would boil in the heat. I could only carry 2 bottles so I had no idea how long they would last.

Starting the race, the only thoughts in my mind were, stick in the group, do the absolute minimum to get around, keep drinking, try to stay close to the gutter where you could take advantage of the shade from trees, and pull out immediately if the going gets tough.

The race was 5 laps of a 14 km circuit on mainly flat roads with an uphill finish so not too bad. When we got going, I had already taken water before the first turn at 500 metres which was a paranoia drink I would say. The first lap was the usual jumping around with no real pressure so I kept going for the second where there was some hard attacking which forced the pace. During this lap I will never forget how dry my mouth felt at one stage – an Arab`s sandle is all I can say. I think I heard a hissing noise when I took a drink after a not been able to get to the bottle for a while due to the fast pace. There was a line out through the start/finsh line for the 3^rd lap so I had to keep going for another lap. During this lap the water in my bottle had reached ambient (40 degrees) and was starting to cause me stomach problems and I felt like vomitting. I could have taken water from a support motorbike but this was cold and this would cause stomach cramping due to the temperature difference so I have been told to stick with the hot stuff as vomitting is better than cramping. Something kept me going through lap 4 and as we hit the bell the temperatures had take their toll and the field was down to about 30 with only 3 riders up the road and I had a crazy idea to jump away on the back straight into the wind. That never happened and the bunch sprinted in for 4^th place and I managed 8^th overall and 3^rd in my category (33 – 39 years). Some 3 lunatics spent the entire race out their own doing up an over which I could only liken to “self-harm”.

The whole last lap I could only think about the cool can of coke that I had left in the car and when I got back to the carpark it was attacked. Re-hydration consisted of 2ltrs of water, 3 glasses of coke in the local bar, and 2 icecreams.  I had won wine as my prize but that was too hot to swallow.

This can only happen in Italy – the winner gets a big pallet of fresh fish !

Gearoid Loughnane

Giro di Costa Smeralda - North East Sardinia May 2006
Report from Gearoid Loughnane
I had been hearing about this race for a few weeks beforehand from the locals but I was still shocked when I rode down to the start line and saw the enormity of the whole event. 1700 participants meant I could not even see where the start line was let alone get near it. Three pro-teams, Panaria, Selle Italia, Acqua & Sapore and all the top amateur teams from Italy were here as points were on offer for the “Prestige Series” of races which determine the best riders in the country.

Two races were to be run, one of 110km on mainly flat roads and the second was 145km with approx 20km of climbing on very stiff climbs. Both races started together and split after 80km with all riders been tracked with an electronic tag. With no grading system in Italian racing all riders have a choice of events to participate in so all the hype had finally gotten to me and I chose the easier of the two races on offer. Both races were also the first stage of the “Giro of Sardinia” which is a 6 stage, 7 day race which also counts for the Prestige series so quite a number of the heavy hitters were here.

Race conditions were good – 20 degrees, cloudy and no wind. Once the race started there was an immediate panic by those riders who had got caught in the middle or towards the rear of the bunch, all attempting to get to the front. This made the first 45 minutes of riding very dangerous as roads were also narrow and open to traffic. I noticed the U23 champion of Italy trying to make his way towards the front surrounded by 5 or 6 team- mates, with hands going in all directions. The pace for the first hour was moderate so this did allow those who had got caught at the start to get back up near the front and then the  race settled down a bit.

After 40km the race was split after a serious of small hills with a front group of approx 200 which contained all the main players. There was 2 chaisng groups of appox 50 each which made it back on but were immediately shelled when another hill was encountered at 50km. I was part of this group of strugglers while the front guys appeared to be still talking to each other with their hands on top of the bars

At 60km Raimondas Rasmus (3^rd in TDF & convicted drugs dealer), attacked and set the front bunch into action. Rasmus was chased by 2 riders from Panaria and then a group of 15. Rasmus held a 1`00 lead hitting the hills with 30km left over the 2 chasers and 2 minutes over the next group. This was as close as they got as he pulled away on the climbs and came a full 5 minutes ahead of the 2 chasers. There was a low key reception for winner at the line with most of the talk about his past history. There was gigantic performance by two of the lads form Cagliari coming in as part of the 15 man group sprinting for 4<sup>th</sup> place which was made up mainly of pro`s.

The shorter race was decided by a break away group of 6 ahead of  two large chasing groups with the rest well dispersed. As for myself, I was classed as 76^th in a field which would probably be at a level the same as B racing in Ireland. It was a tremendous experience just to be riding so close to some of the pros, even though it was not for long, and to be part of such a large field of riders. This was one race I wont be forgetting for quite a while.

Thanks & Regards Gearoid Loughnane

Bertoni Gorey 3-Day April 15-17th 2006
Report by Hugh Byrne
An exciting weekend of racing was had by all in the Bertoni Gorey 3 Day with Sean Rock trying to add his name to the list of greats who won this race before his inevitable promotion to the A Category, and Stephen Halpin also trying to make his mark as part of a very strong Irish Junior Team. Our Club Team also had the benifit of the experience of Sean Lally riding in his 151st Gorey and the backup team of Pat Halpin, Mick Daly, Terry Quinlan and Kieran Whelan. Our other riders were Michael Daly, James Whelan, Sam McArdle and Kevin Donagher riding in his first major stage race. Kevin was riding in the Leinster colours as just reward for his early season good form as he moves swiftly through the C grade.

Stage 3 saw Sean once again go clear with 2 laps to go with Adriaan Pretorius and at one stage Sean was in 'yellow on the road' when the gap went to 1 minute. Things were looking good when these 2 riders were joined by another 10 or so riders at 5k but once again the bunch reeled them in 2k from the finish.Stage 4, the final stage, usually comes down to a bunch gallop and Sean thought that he would save some energy for this and try to put his name on a stage. Stephen Halpin has other ideas!!!. From the gun, Stephen and Irish Junior Teammate Isaac Speirs, got into a 12 man break and this looked dangerous to the yellow jersey as Isaac was 4th on GC at 13sec and Stephen a further 5 seconds back in 5th. The Orwell lads rode a cool race under the expert guidance of Aidan Hammond who called it, that it was best to leave the break out there but not to let it get beyond 2 minutes and obviously other teams would also assist in the chase in pusuit of the stage when push came to shove. He got it right and once again the break was pulled back within the last few miles but not before Stephen tried to break clear on his own in pusuit of the stage and possibly the overall. Sean Rock was beaten into 2nd place in the massive bunch gallop and Declan Byrne had defended the time gained in the TT to take the Overall with no time gaps lost or gained by the main players since Stage 2. The race finished with Sean 3rd on GC at 11 seconds and Stephen 5th @ 18 seconds. Sean also picked up 3rd in the KOH and 3rd Points.
Sean's next major outing will be the Tour of the North on the May Bank Holiday weekend, where points gained on his license this w/end will see him compete as an A cat while Stephen will be riding that weekend on the Irish Junior Team in the Corkman 3 Day.
Special mention also to Colm Crawley (Stamullen MD) who stayed with the Swords lads in The Gorey and placed well in the gallop on 2 stages. Also special thanks to the sponsor Eddie Lynch and Bertoni Menswear for a more than generous prize list and to Shane Stokes & IrishCycling.com for their excelent coverage of the race. <Photos on Swords website>

Final overall classification: 1, Declan Byrne (Orwell Dundrum SC) 190.75 miles in 7 hours 38 mins 19 secs 2, Robin Kelly (Comeragh CC) at 7 secs 3, Sean Rock (McNally Swords CC) at 11 secs 4, Isaac Speirs (Irish Junior Team) at 13 secs 5, Stephen Halpin (Irish Junior Team) at 18 secs 6, Tom Shanahan (Limerick CC) at 20 secs Photo right : Stephen Halpin

Solo win in Jazzer Wherity Memorial! April 2nd 2006
Report by Kevin Donagher
Race was on Sunday morning and the weather according to Sky news on Paddy's day. Didn't really work out that way and when everyone showed up it was lashing rain and there was a nice warm tropical breeze blowing around. It took a good while to pluck up the bravery to get out of the car but the need to water the flowers proved too strong. The A's and B's went off first for four 18 mile laps making the C race look like a spin down to the shops and then the vets and juniors headed off for 3 laps. The C race and the women\rquote s race were 2 laps so we couldnt really complain apart from the lack of feeling in hands and feet. The races started on the skinniest bog road they could find and it was dodgy with loads of team cars 200 lads. The hardest part of the whole race was definitely waiting around to start as everything started to turn blue. My strategy was to go hard so I might sweat and become less frozen and I was glad to see the hill at the Naul just to get back a bit of body warmth. I had a go going up the hill and decided to just keep going and see what happened. I managed to sneak away and I was delighted not to bonk and hold on for the next Saw Jason finish 10th in the A race covered in mud looking like he'd been fighting the Vietcong in Vietnam and headed in for a cup of tea. Drove home and ate every biscuit in the house including the coffee sweets in the roses box that are always left to last!

Kevin D.

PS Check out the Photos on IrishCycling.com. <Photos>
Peter Puirfield captured Kevin's initial attack om the Naul Hill and his photo of him crossing the line shows no one else in sight!

Training the Italian way! Hello from Sardinia. March 7th 2006 Some of our newer members may not know Gearoid, but he was rider of good standing in our Club up to when he moved to live in Sardinia a little over a year ago. His roots in cycling were in Sean Kelly country but joined Swords when he settled in Dublin. He alway had a no nonsense approch to cycling, trained hard and rose through the ranks to A cat and was our Club Rider of the Year in 2002. I have heard much from Gianni (affectionately known as 'the little Italian') about his days racing in Sardinia and always thought he was 'bigging it up', but from the sounds of it .............perhaps not!!!!! Most of you have come accross Gianni at some stage on the roads around Batterstown and I hope to do an interview with him at some stage. Gearoid has promised to write some articles from time to time on the amateur scene in Italy and let us know how he gets on when hostilities commense. Many thanks to Gearoid for taking the time to write the article and we look forward to hearing from him again. (Hugh) Simon Whelan and Gearoid back in 2002 >>

Report from Gearoid Loughnane
Ciao a Tutti, In response to Hugh`s request for more rider articles for the coming season I offer you this brief insight into training here on the Italian island of Sardinia.

My first impressions when I got here over a year ago now was the huge amount of cyclists that were actaually on the road. When driving to and from the city (Cagliari) at anytime of the day or year it would be impossible not to pass numerous bunches of cyclists of all ages out for a spin. It cuts a contrast with the often solitude figure I would pass on a bike on my way to work in Dublin. I have been told that cycling was the number 1 sport here in the 50`s and 60`s (Moser era) and was only surpassed by Calcio (soccer) in the mid 70`s. Even today, the national daily sports newspaper (La Gazzetta Dello Sport) has its cycling articles immediately after the soccer reports which tells us a little about its importance here.

After my delight at seeing the sheer numbers of cyclists around when I got here I had been very eager to get to involved in the racing scene but had to postpone it until this year as things were very hectic when I arrived first and the bike had to be sidelined for a while. I started training in December on my own as I was wanted some very basic level of fitness before I got in with the locals (did`nt want everyone getting cold waiting for me). In January I started meeting up with a local group (up to 60 on a Sunday morning) which were doing 4 hours on Sat & Sun and 3 x 2 hour spins midweek so this was the perfect amount of training for me.
The training sessions are a mirror image of the Italian way of life – chaotic! There is no formation, no up and over, variable speeds, numerous attacks and the minute they see a hill all hell breaks lose. For example yesterday (Sunday morning spin), about an hour into the spin, two monsters go to the front and for a solid hour belt out a tempo which had the rest of us (about 40) hanging on and afraid to say anything for fear of being asked to do a turn. We then turn into an strong headwind, these two guys decide to relax a bit and then this other fella takes off and for the remainder of the spin it’s a line-out.

Within any training session, it’s the strong guys who tend to dominant the tempo and the rest of us will just tend to stay out of the way with no obligation to do a turn at the front. If you feel ok then you just go to the front and do a stint till until someone else comes up (you could get caught for 10 mins) and if you don’t feel so good then you are expected to sit-in. While the training is chaotic and completely un-organised, I must say that Im enjoying it as you never know what is going to happen in any particular session which makes it exciting. I had expected the complete opposite when I came out here as this is after all the worlds number 1 ranked cycling country and you would have thought that the training structures would have been well taught out and supervised to some level. However, maybe it is this “do as you feel” style of riding that is producing the top guns such as Basso, DiLuca, Simoni etc.
As regards myself and how Im coping with the training, I find it hard. Im ok on the flat but when I hit the hills I tend to go a little bit south from the stronger guys. I can ride over the longer ones (10k to 15k) with the main group but this would be 5 to 6 minutes off the first group. I can nearly hang in there on shorter climbs but it’s a real struggle (head sideways, mouth open type). It is impossible to guage anything yet as racing does not start until early April and that will tell a lot. I have been told that the hard men come from the mountains up in the centre of the island so God knows what they will be like. The region of Sardinia would not be one of the stronger regions within Italian cycling and is only producing a handful of pros (3 at the minute) so I would be fearful of any of the trips to the mainland that the clubs organize. The North of Italy especially the regions around Tuscanyare the powerhouse of Italian cycling – a lot of the pro teams are based there.

Im not exactly sure of the race formats either – some guys have told me that everyone is in together but Im not sure what this will include. Im classed as Master 1 (older than 32 years) for racing. Im joining the local club here where I live called “Mare & Mountane” which translates to “Sea & Mountains” (you could leave out the mountains bit for me). One thing which I thought was a good idea hre is a compulsory medical for all persons taking out a national licence given the physical strains of the sport.
Anyway, these are my first thoughts on cycling here in the Med but I will share more with you throughout the season when the racing starts and the famous “fuse-like Italian temper) kicks in around mid May when temperature starts to rise.

Till then.Ciao Gearoid

2006: Good start for Swords riders! February 26/27th 2006
Report from Hugh Byrne
All in all a satisifactory opening weekends racing for Swords riders. Saturday saw a larger than expected field, with 176 signing on, to brave the elements in the Bray Grand Prix. Stephen Halpin seems to continue where he left off , with some great results over the Christmas, and was in fighting form in his first race proper of the 2006 season. Himself and Isaac Speirs (Avonmore) countered an early move and found themselves in a five man break in the company of three Murphy-Gunn riders after 5 miles. These 5 worked together well with the two Juniors more than holding their own and by Rathnew word filtered back to the main bunch that the advantage held by the break was up to 2 minutes. However when the break hit the carriageway on the way in, they were battling a very cold headwind and with serious moves coming from behind their days were numbered. A strong group of 8, mostly A riders, got accross to and went straight through the main bunch of Vets, Cs and Juniors. This group of 8 contained eventual race winner Conor Murphy (Murphy-Gunn) and and our own Sean Rock riding his first race as a senior. This group bridged accross to the break and indeed another Swords rider, Kevin Donagher, did well in managing to get accross with them. Then there was a slight stall in hostilities allowing some of the main bunch to get back on before Conor Murphy took off into the wind to solo to victory with enough time to savour the win , before Colm Bracken (Kilcullen CC) showed he is still the man to beat in the sprint taking the gallop. Despite being in the break most of the day, Stephen still managed to take the 1st Junior pot. Check out Peter Puirfields excellent photos on IrishCycling,com. They tell their own story. <Photos of Bray GP>

On Sunday, our club was kindly invited to take part in a Dublin Wheelers training race over 3 laps of the Green Sheds circuit. This was run on a h/cap basis and the race was pretty much together on the final lap. Sean Rock made a brave bid for victory with a solo effort from about five miles out. When he was reeled in Stephen Halpin and Brian Taffe (DWCC) countered and got clear with a little over a mile to go. They maintained a gap to the finish with the feisty Haplin taking the sprint for his first win of the season. Sean Rock, another rider obviously to watch this season, despite the earlier effort took the bunch spint for 3rd with his auld fella 1st Vet.

Elsewhere Brian Crinion placed 3rd in the Limerick Duathlon, being beaten into 3rd by 1 sec, and 20 sec back on the race winner.
<Race report on Limerick Duathlon on IrishTriathlon.com.>

Hugh Byrne

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