National Champs director Declan Byrne expects a road race war of attrition
By Brian Canty
“This will be the best championships there has ever been.”
Strong words from the man behind arguably the most unenviable of tasks - running the National Road Race & TT Championships on a shoestring budget.
But for Declan Byrne of promoting club Clonmel CC, it’s a labour of love. And the hard work is now behind him and his band of volunteers. All he’s hoping for now is some fine weather to compliment the two years of planning that has gone into getting this far.
“All’s going good now, we’re all excited,” said the championships director.
“It’s four separate races over the three days but it’s all come together. We’re going to put on a great show and if we were guaranteed some good weather it would be even better. But in terms of atmosphere, the location, everything else, it’s going to be great racing.”
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Running an event of this magnitude is laced with minefields; from choosing a challenging and safe course for the riders to catering for the spectators, it has been quite an adventure. And much more than a bike race is on the agenda, insists Byrne.
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“We’re really hoping for a good day because it’s more than just running a cycle race. You’ll notice when you’re down in Clonmel it’s a significant town in size, not much smaller than Waterford in population. And we are closing down just 1.8 kilometres of the centre of Clonmel; barriers at the side of the road, bands playing, music, stilt walkers, a bouncy castle village, all to create an atmosphere in the town and for the people of Clonmel to thank them for letting us shut down the town. So it’s a huge undertaking”
Obviously, racing takes top billing, however, and to select a route was no easy task.
“There were two things in it actually,” comes the response. “One, I wanted to bring it through the town of Clonmel and two, I wanted it to be a real good challenging course. We ran a race in 2009, the Military World Championships, and we’re using you could say 80% of that circuit. But that wasn’t hard enough. You saw afterwards that it wasn’t hard enough and that was the feedback.”
“So we’ve added six kilometres onto that particular circuit and we’ve introduced another little hill and I think if you ask any of the lads who went along there once or twice recently, they’ll probably tell you ‘oh, it’s not so bad’. But I can tell you after six or seven laps you’ll feel it.”
Byrne believes it is a false flat nearing the finish where the race will be decided.
“Yes for sure, there’s actually a lovely section of road coming in the last couple of kilometres, it’s a false flat and that’s where I think it’s going to be won and lost.”
As for a prediction; “It will be hard to look outside Brammeier, Nicolas Roche, McCann if he has the same form as he had in the Rás. But you know, the An Post team have the advantage of a team, four riders in the race with Downey, Bennett, McLaughlin and McConvey so who knows?”
The Championships in Numbers
- Approx number racing elite race: 160
- Total riders over four races (Some duplication): 250
- Cost of accommodating race officials: €4,000
- Number of race officials (approx): 100
- Total cost so far to run event (approx): €37,000
- Number of photo bikes: 6
- Printing costs (signage, flyers etc.): €10,000
- Cost of numbers on riders’ backs: €700
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