The best Irish off-road rider in history, Robin Seymour will swap to the road this weekend when he lines up at the Gorey Three-Day.
By Gerard Cromwell
With the Gorey Three-Day down for decision this weekend, one of the more interesting names on the start sheet is that of multiple national cyclo-cross and mountain bike champion Robin Seymour who will ride the race with the Expert Cycles team.
While he may be better known for his off-road exploits, Seymour is no stranger to the road and once represented Ireland in the An Post Rás.
“I’ve never done the Gorey before,” he says.
“I was always an A1, which ruled me out of it. But I’ve been demoted back to A2 now and there are a couple of us going from the shop here and a few more mountain bikers doing it too, so it should be good.”
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Although the three-day race will boost his endurance and help towards his training for the upcoming mountain bike season, it wasn’t a top priority when it came to riding the legendary race.
“It’s something we talked about doing last year and just didn’t get around to," he said.
"I’ve always been interested in doing it but some of the guys in the shop here, Max and Alfie, they rode a couple of years ago and they wanted to do it again.
"For me, it’s just something I haven’t done and probably should do. It’s a bit like riding the Rás. I’m a romantic about these kind of things.
"I like the concept of it and am interested in seeing what it’s like. I don’t even know what the route is like though.”
Robin Seymour, back right hand corner of the green jersey quartet, riding the FBD Rás on the Irish team back in 2008. Irish team left to right; Roger Aiken, Seymour, Paul Griffin, Michael Concannon (Photo with thanks to Eddie Dawson, www.rastailteann.com)
Having lost his cyclo-cross title to Roger Aiken in Belfast in January, Seymour has been building back up slowly and will only have one road race in his legs before leaving Brittas on Saturday.
“I haven’t actually raced on the road all year,” he admits.
“I’ve just been training away preparing for the mountain bike season again. I do some mountain bike spins, just chipping away and go out with a training group on the road but it’s not quite the same as jumping around in a race.”
With the National Points Series beginning the week after Gorey, Seymour will soon be back in the thick of off-road action and hopes to do a good ride at the European Mountain Bike Championships in Ballyhoura in June.
“Obviously the Europeans are a goal, especially having the opportunity to ride it on home soil in front of people here," he says.
"I’m sort of working towards that, aiming for the distance. I haven’t really done marathon races for quite a while now, so I have no idea how it will go.
"I don’t know who will turn up to it. There are former European mountain bike champions like Christophe Sausser who are talking about coming over to it so I’m sure it will be tough.”
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At 93km and with 2,199 metres of climbing, the marathon event is sure to be a long hard day in the saddle, even for the fastest guys.
“It’ll be long and tough, longer than cross country stuff which is only an hour and a half, or an hour and 45 minutes.
"People think it’s an endurance thing and you plod your way through it, but the world class guys go quick. It’s pretty flat out, like cross country events.
"I rode the blitz a while back on the white trail in Ballyhoura, which is 35km. It took me an hour and a half to do and that’s the last 35km of the European course.
"It’s hard because it’s all single track. It’s not that difficult in itself, but if you’re flat out, it’s hard. And you’ll have probably spent three hours doing the previous 60km before that.”
Although the Europeans will be based in Ireland, Seymour can’t see many domestic riders taking on the elite event, due to a UCI ruing which means they would then lose their masters status at the national championships.
“The majority of the guys on the national scene are over 30 years old and race either masters or vets," he says.
"But because it’s a UCI event, they’d lose their status as a master if they rode it, so there are only a handful or riders in Ireland who will ride it, maybe 10 or 15 elite guys.
"So there won’t be that big an entry from Ireland but you should have good participation from the UK and Europe.”
While he will ride the Gorey Three-Day, his job at Expert Cycles in Rathfarnham, south Dublin, means taking more time off to ride the Rás and to gain more endurance is not really an option.
“It’s very hard for me from a work point of view to take a week off. Things like the Gravity Enduro have really big participation nowadays.
"Almost everyone is on a €3,000 bike and it’s really good for the industry. Mountain biking can be quite hard on bikes and we do a lot of repairs and servicing.
"We also have the Yeti brand of full suspension bikes from Colorado in the shop now, so we’re pretty busy.
"The three-day races work out okay but a week is too much. I’d have to dedicate myself to riding on the road too if I was to do that. You’d have to change your training and go away from the mountain bike a little bit.”
For now though, there is no fear of that and Seymour aims to take his 20th national mountain bike title in Killarney come July.
“I’ve won it 19 times so I’ll be going for the 20th in Killarney but after (a silver medal at) the cyclo-cross it’s all gone horribly wrong,” laughs the evergreen 42-year-old.
“I have 18 cyclo-cross titles. The mountain bike championships have overtaken that now but time is running out to make it 20.”
Will he stop if he reaches 20 titles?
“I have to win it first,” he laughs. “I’ll get through this year and then see how I’m going.”
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