A report by Paul Atkinson.


After a couple of weeks absence due to the rained-off race and holidays, it was back to the scene of the nearest thing to triumph I’m ever going to get in this league (my 8th place from last month!) for 4 laps of the Bog of the Ring course (40km).

Group 2 was honoured to witness the return of Shaun Gilbride to competitive action following his racing "incident" a few weeks ago. He was clearly here to teach us a few lessons ...

One of the smaller group 2s of the season to date with quite a few moving up to Group 3 and others away on holiday - maybe around 15 in total

I wasn't expecting much as I'd been away myself and had a reasonably hard vets race the previous night.

We set off at a handy pace – Some of us (me included) were probably pushing a bit hard on occasions. I suspect it put a few of the weaker riders off and it soon became clear there were about 8 of us sharing the workload. Sorry guys, I don’t know all your names, but those I do know who deserve a lot of credit for their efforts include (in no particular order) Barry Byrne, Paddy Kelly, Shaun and another guy I had been up against at the vets race the previous evening, Noel Thompson.

The first lap felt hard, but my legs were suffering a bit following the previous night. We actually did it 16s faster (average 36.9kph) than the last time we did the course (when Group 2 stayed away and a lot more were able to share the work). The HR was looking quite high (it was over 170 for about 60% of the race, which is over 90% of my highest recorded HR) and normalised power was running at well over 300w in the early stages.

I was getting more into it on the second lap and the pace eased a little to 36.3kph - we caught Group 1 early in this lap. At least one of the Group 1 riders did his fair share on the front for a lap or so. On the 3rd lap the group split with the 8 "workers" breaking away about half way round. Average speed was 36.2kph.

Just before half way round the final lap we were caught by a very large combined Groups 3, 4 and scratch, and the pace picked up to an average 37.5kph for the whole lap.

With about 500m to go it was clear I would be nowhere near contention and I eased off the back of the large group. I noticed Shaun just ahead of me approaching the finishing line, so put a bit of a half-hearted sprint on, but now I can at least say I've beaten him in a sprint finish (not sure he was interested in taking the bait though...). I finished at an overall average speed of 36.6kph (compared with 36kph over 5 laps last time) and normalised power of 290w.

Winner on the night was Paul Kennedy with Javan Nulty second and Dave O’Connor third – well done guys, you must have been working hard to close down the handicaps, particularly as Group 3 had taken over from Group 2 as the large one on the night.

Thanks to Sam and all the marshals (btw I don’t mind you telling Group 2 what the time gaps are, but the faster groups can look after themselves!) for keeping us safe on the roads.