Tobin winning the Onchan Cup, Isle of Man in 1993; he’ll be back in the bunch in 2013
One of the strongest riders in the country while still a teenager, former National Junior Road Race Champion and senior international Ken Tobin is planning a return to racing in 2013.
“I know the first few races will be just getting my bearings but anyone who knows me knows I’m too competitive to just participate,” he told stickybottle.
“Lets hope these 37-year-old legs respond to what my mind wants them to do!”
The former Bray Wheelers rider is now living in Malahide in north Dublin and will ride next year in the colours of Swords CC. He has not raced for 16 years and while he’s now married with children he says he is determined to race for the full season and is hopeful of making progress in his first year back.
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“I’m planning to do club races with Swords and also open races. I’ve just got my A3 licence so I’m aiming to get enough points to move up to A2. I’m hoping to have enough fitness to ride the Gorey Three Day at Easter. But I won’t get too carried away early in the year because I’m planning on riding the full season rather than stopping in June, which a lot of riders seem to.”
Tobin said he’s been thinking for the past number of years of racing again but with his youngest child having arrived three years ago, those plans were put on ice until now. He has been training again for much of the past year.
He said a recent contact with Declan Keogh – the businessman behind the Dectek technology company and Ultimate Clothing, the kit supplier to the An Post-Sean Kelly team – had acted as a catalyst for his return to the bike proper.
“Declan very kindly and very quickly sourced me Sam Bennett's road bike from the 2011 season. I got my hands on the bike in February and my first spin back on the bike in 16 years was a 125km spin with Declan and his club mates. I knew straight away that I was hooked again. I thoroughly enjoyed the spin and I wasn’t that surprised that I could do it again. My attitude was ‘my muscles haven't forgotten how to cycle, they just need to be reminded what they can do’.”
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Tobin left the sport while still a teenager but was one of the strongest riders in the country from a very early age, winning senior races as a junior.
While still in the junior ranks he took the national title in 1993 and was second overall in the Junior Tour in 1992. He returned to the Junior Tour in 1993 where he won a stage and led the race for five stages before finally finishing fifth overall. He also won the green jersey and the first year junior classification in the race.
Tobin was second in the Mannin Veg senior race in the Isle of Man while a junior. He was to win a string of criterium and circuit races in the Isle of Man as both a junior and senior and represented Ireland as a junior there, as well as in the Junior Tour of Ireland and Tour of Wales. He also won a stage in the Dublin Bus Tour of Fingal senior race while still a junior.
In his first year as a senior he was Mid Eastern Region champion; one of 14 wins that year. Other notable victories in his first year in the senior ranks included: the Tour of Tyrone classic league event; Port Erin Criterium in the Isle of Man; overall winner of the Mullingar Two Day.
He represented Ireland in his first year as a senior in the Isle of Man, the Kelloggs criterium series in Scotland and at the Tour of Hokkaido in Japan.
However, after such a promising start to his senior career he disappeared from the bunch.
“I knocked it on the head when I was 19 after a poor winter in 1994. It exposed an underlying knee, hip and shoulder injury. I only found out in the last two years that the injuries were from a head-on crash with a motor bike in the finishing straight of the Des Hanlon junior classic in Carlow in 1993. So over the past two years I’ve been getting long overdue treatment from a chiropractor and physio and I’ve corrected the spinal misalignments I’d been carrying for 18 years.”
As well as the competition of the season ahead, he said he’s looking forward to tapping into the atmosphere of the racing scene again.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting up with old riders again and getting back into the whole buzz of the racing community; it should be great.”
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