Ryan Mullen banging out a Watts bazooka personal record on his way to winning the men's title at the National TT Champs (Photo: Sean Rowe)
Ryan Mullen data Irish TT Champs win
Ryan Mullen turned out a personal best Watts average for forty minutes during his National TT Champs victory last night.
The Cannondale-Drapac TT specialist saw off last year’s champion Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing).
Irish amateur, and former An Post-Chainreaction rider, Marcus Christie (SBR Performance) was 3rd.
Mullen’s weighted average Watts for his moving time of 40:47 was 438W.
We've included his data at the very end of this piece in three images, which you can click on to make the images nuch larger.
It was his second elite TT title, having won in Omagh two years ago and was his trade team’s first national title of the year.
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“It means a lot to me,” Mullen said afterwards. “I felt like I was under a bit of pressure to win, especially after Worlds last year.
“To be honest, I expected to win and would have been disappointed if I didn’t. I’m glad I wasn’t unrealistic or over-confident about my chances.
“Being a national champion is something I’m very proud of.
“I will always make an effort to come to Nationals, even if the timing or the location doesn’t make it the easiest race in the world to include in my schedule.”
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Ryan Mullen getting underway, burying his head at the finish and looked dazed after his hard effort (Photos with thanks to Dave Allen)
In the end he clocked a time of 40:48 over the 33.5km course, some 15 seconds ahead of Roche.
“The race was run on this country road,” explained Mullen of last night’s course starting and finishing in Johnstown, Co Wexford.
“The surface was really bad, with holes everywhere, and it was hard to pick your line. I think that played to my strength as a heavier guy.
“The lighter guys probably bounced about. There wasn’t much in the way of climbs. It was a fairly straightforward course.”
Mullen adjusted his ride to the breeze on the night, with a headwind facing the riders on the way out to the turn.
“I had to start a little bit harder than what I could sustain,” he said.
“I got to the halfway point, and I hadn’t over-paced. I was 15-seconds down. I thought: ‘Well, shit. This hasn’t gone to plan.’
“But Roche went out too hard as well, and I pulled back 30, 40 seconds on him going back.”
And while he will now ride the road race on Sunday, he said his focus has been exclusively on the TT in the build up to the championships.
“I haven’t even looked at the course yet,” he said. “I was all in for the TT. I wanted that skinsuit back. That was the big goal for the weekend.
“I did the double in 2014 and I’ll try to do that again, but for the road race, most of the field just sits on the WorldTour riders.
“There are four of us, so it’s not anything like a normal race. I’ll definitely give it a crack.”
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