Nicolas Roche is always in the mix and has been road and TT champ in the past. Can he do it again on Sunday? Seen here in 2012 leading the breakaway in Clonmel, with Martyn Irvine, Matt Brammeier and a very young Philip Lavery.
Preview National Road Cycling Champs course
The organisers of this weekend’s National Road Race Championships believe the course is a very hard one and with virtually all of our top riders present it will be a feast of racing.
The junior men’s and elite women’s races were set to take place today, Saturday. And on Sunday it is the turn of the junior women and the combined elite and U23 men’s race.
Dara Mooney of promoting club Eire Og said the races had attracted large entries and that in the men’s race all bar Dan Martin of the pros were entered.
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“The circuit is 18km; the junior men will do seven laps and the elite women will do six on Saturday morning and afternoon respectively,” he said.
“And then on Sunday; in the morning the junior women do four laps and the men do 10. It comes off the circuit for the finish.
“The elite men are going to do pretty much ten laps. The start and finish area are not located in the same place so it will be like nine and three quarter laps.
“The hill on it is known as the Hungry Rock, it was actually used in the Nissan Classic in 1988.
Lydia Boylan and Lara Gillespie are favourties for the elite and junior women's crowns. But it is by no means a foregone conclusion and others in the field are well capable of beating them and becoming champion.
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Mooney continued: “We’ve been using it as our Connacht Championship route numerous times and we run it as our Markiewicz Cup event also.
“The climb is about a mile long; it’s 1500 metres. It’s about 6 percent average gradient but there are some bits on it that are 11 per cent, so it is quite steep in places.
“As a racing circuit it’s brilliant. Anytime we’ve used it as a Connacht Championship event it’s always been a tough race.
“The top of the hill on the last lap will be maybe 3km from the finish or thereabouts.
“So if there was a gap that was not substantial, the guys still have plenty of scope to get back on. It’s a nice descent, a good surface
“There’s two long straight areas of road on the circuit where you can see for a minute and a half or two minutes ahead of you.
“So for riders to stay away; they really need to keep the power on. The racing circuit is brilliant. It’s got a bit of everything in it.
“It’s a grinding race. This year in the Markiewicz Cup, Paddy Clarke, who lives pretty near to the course, went bananas on the first lap.
“And guys who you would have thought as being fairly good A1 quality riders just went straight out the back about five miles into the race.
“So if some of the pros do that they will shatter it on the first lap. I know at one point Mark Scanlon had the Strava KOM on it which was about four minutes.
“It has been broken a few times since but not substantially. We reckon that the boys on Sunday will take like a minute off it.”
Mooney said it was a circuit that he expects to really break up the races.
“It’s not an easy circuit. It’ very unforgiving with that climb. If you’re left on your own it can be crucifixion.”
Mooney added the finish involved a downhill off the climb for about 1.5km, then a flat section, with a long finishing straight of between 250 and 300 metres.
“There’s a left hand turn then you can see the whole finishing straight just in front of you, with a slight kick up to it.”
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