Seymour blasts in for convincing 18th title, Aiken rues mechanical problems

Robin Seymour may be aged forty now, but today he proved there's life in the older dog yet by taking his 18th national cyclocross title with a masterful display in St Anne's Park, Raheny, north Dublin.

The Team WORC rider won by well over a minute from Roger Aiken (Banbridge CC), who had to contend with mechanical problems for much of the race.

Aiken told stickybottle his chain jumped off four times during the testing and technical nine-lap event. He said while it was difficult to say how much closer his dual with Seymour would have been if not for those problems, he felt he would have been beaten into second place anyway.

Seymour punched the air, shouting with delight on the packed finishing straight and afterwards said he felt he had managed his effort well and felt strong throughout.

"With the form so far this year, for sure Roger's been riding really strongly; you certainly couldn't say that winning was a foregone conclusion. I'd say he was the favourite for it."

Seymour said the technical course, with steps, a steep gully, narrow pedestrian bridge and tight slippy corners slightly favoured his bike handling skills.

"Roger is amazing; this (course) is probably something he wouldn't have done maybe years ago. But he rides the bike so well now everywhere. I probably still have the edge on him on the technical stuff but it's not that big a difference anymore."

Seymour said he planned to measure his effort carefully until around the halfway point and then make the move to attack Aiken and anyone else still in contention at that point. However, when Aiken's chain came off close to the end of the second lap and Seymour was gifted a small gap, he decided to put an early effort in.

"You get a five or ten second gap and then you really work it and manage it from there. You've got to keep pushing in these situations, make it hard for the riders behind, they have to push flat out behind you and then they can make mistakes."

He said his form had been so "up and down" in recent months he was unsure how he would feel today.

"I've got so old now that I struggle to maintain consistent form," he laughed. "I don't know how I'm going to be each race; that's the difference to how I was five or ten years ago, when I'd be about the same level every race."

Aiken blamed himself for his own misfortune but said he most likely would have ended up with silver anyway. The 30-year-old's run of bad luck began on the second lap.

"My chain came off the front. It was probably my fault because I'd a problem with the front changer this morning. It wouldn't go into the big ring and I decided to take the changer off which was a big mistake.

"I probably would have been a lot closer (to Seymour) without the problem, but I don't think I would have beaten him. If it had been closer I might have dug a bit deeper and maybe find more in the legs, but...."

He added he was also at a disadvantage because he had not raced the ch pionship course when the Stevens Supercross Cup visited the venue in recent weeks.

"It would have given me an idea what it was like."

It was third-placed man Matt Adair (Banbridge CC) who made the early running, charging ahead on the opening lap to build a lead of around five seconds over Seymour and Aiken as they came through the start-finish area after the first lap. It looked as if te mates Adair and Aiken were going to try and work over Seymour from the start.

Behind the first three came Evan Ryan (Te WORC) and Anthony 'Zippy' Doyle (Unattached), with the rest of the field distanced and strung out even after the opening lap of nine.

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As the second lap was nearing completion, Adair had been caught by the chasing pair and Aiken looked strong as he took up the pace setting, with Seymour close by. However, Aiken's chain then came off for the first time and Seymour was handed a decent gap. That went out to around 20 seconds before Aiken's pressing hard behind pegged back a few seconds by the time they began the fourth lap.

While Aiken continued to have his problems, Seymour looked very strong and put a couple of seconds into Aiken even on those laps where Aiken had no mechanical problems.

With two laps to go Seymour's lead was just over one minute. He continued to ride very strongly and with confidence as Aiken looked more dejected.

Behind those two, Adair was never challenged for the bronze and while he continued to lose time to both Seymour and Aiken throughout the race, he was similarly putting time into those behind him and took a comfortable bronze.

The battle between Ryan and Doyle for fourth place petered out at around the halfway point, with Doyle losing touch with Ryan and never getting back on terms. However, it was nonetheless an impressive ride by roadman Doyle, who very easily saw of the challenge of many cyclocross specialists in the field. Daragh Mortimer was a very strong sixth.

There were a total of 53 starters, with just three juniors and three women turning out. Because of the low numbers of juniors and women, only a gold medal was awarded in those races; going to Rob Deegan and Ciara McManus respectively. The vets title went to John Bogues from Peter McConville with Johnny McCabe in third.

Results

Senior Men

Vets

Womens

Juniors

B Race Mens

B Race Womens

Caroline Martinez speaks to women's champion Ciara McManus.

Great video of champs from Cycling Ulster

Special thanks to Gary Guildea for the photos.

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