Robin Seymour believes he is still riding well and sounds like there are plenty more seasons in his legs, but he said today's winner Roger Aiken was simply too strong for him in Belfast.
When it comes to off-road racing in Ireland, Robin Seymour has only been beaten a handful of times in the past two decades; a phenomenal 18 national cyclocross titles only bettered by a whopping 19 mountain bike titles.
Whilst defeat is not a word usually associated with the legendary Wicklow man, Seymour’s second place to Roger Aiken in today’s National Cyclocross Championships showed he can handle defeat as well as he can handle his bike.
“I think Roger was just in a different league completely today,” admitted silver medalist Seymour afterwards.
“I’m disappointed I’m not at the races. But what can you say? It was very tough. It’s hard on a course like that to kind of get a gauge of how well you’re riding because the climbs are so tough that you’re really struggling up them anyway.
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“I was kind of dreading the climbs each lap so that’s probably a sign that I was struggling a bit today. I’m sure I was probably gaining a bit of time on him in other parts of the course; around the corners, especially the big off-camber corner.
“But he was probably putting a lot of time into me over the tops of the climbs more than anything. Just picking the bike up and accelerating again. In really heavy conditions like this, the small differences make a big difference. But as I say, he was a long way ahead. He was on a different level.”
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Aged 42 years, and having dominated the domestic scene for so long, many would say that something eventually had to give for Seymour. Sooner or later the wins would turn to defeats. Time waits for no man.
But the Team WORC rider doesn’t see it that way.
“I think that’s fair enough but I would always judge it in an absolute sense,” he says.
“If I’m riding as well as I’ve ever ridden, and I don’t expect to be getting better at 42, I don’t expect to be going forward from that. But if I’m riding as well as I did as when I was, say, 32, then I think you can be happy with that.
“I spent the majority of my career riding abroad and I was beaten every weekend. I never won anything, rarely won anything. In the UK or Italy, you’d get the socks knocked out of you every single weekend.
“Because I’ve been at the top of the game for so long in Ireland, from people’s point of view looking on it’s kind of unusual for me to be beaten. But Roger’s been at it a long time too.
“He’s a seasoned competitor and if you took him out of the equation the rest of the guys are quite a long way back. It’s only one rider that’s riding really well ahead of me.
“I’m not 10th in the races. It’s an anomaly for sure but I think Roger is too. When you’re beaten by clearly the best guy in the race, you can’t complain about that.”
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