Power house Eoin Whelan has lowered the Irish masters TT record in the 25 mile discipline.
The Seven Springs CC man, and national title winner, recorded a time of 49:31; lowering the previous best by 10 seconds.
The previous record was held by John Madden and had been set in September, 2014.
Whelan set the new marker despite telling stickybottle his functional threshold power was getting slightly lower each year as his age edges higher.
However, he has focused on making small gains to offset the march of time; running aero testing on himself at NUI Galway over the winter.
And that work, not to mention his training, paid dividends at the recent Virtual CC 25 mile TT in Swansea, Wales.
“The course was out and back with a one
per cent decent all the way to the turnaround point,” he said.
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“There was a stiff enough headwind on
the way home which wasn't ideal. It would have been a faster time if the wind
was in the other direction.
“With the tailwind and downhill I was
holding 55kph on the way out. But I was then fighting hard to keep it over
45kph on the way home.
“I noticed my threshold power dropping a
little bit every year as I get older,” he said, adding the aero tests offered
assistance.
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“You can get a lot of free speed from
aero testing if you can be meticulous, and you know what you are doing.
“Those aero improvements more than made
up for any declines in power output.”
Meanwhile, junior rider Tom Moriarty has taken an impressive scalp; lowering Eddie Dunbar’s course record in a TT in Co Kerry; the record passing from one O'Leary Stone Kanturk man to another.
While the event was the county league, rather than a
national event, Dunbar had held the course record on it since 2014.
And young Moriarty, who is in his first year junior, did
very well to lower a record set by a rider of such calibre; especially as
Dunbar was exceptional even as a junior.
The event is run over a course of exactly 20km; from the
Iron Bridge in Tralee to the Castleisland roundabout and back.
While a flat course, it can been breezy on the exposed
roads and the riders on Thursday evening faced less than ideal conditions.
Moriarty whipped around the course in 26:32, some 22 seconds faster Dunbar back in 2014.
In the same event on Thursday night, Tom Gentleman beat the
M50 course record of 28:21 set by Peter White in 2017; Gentleman recording a
new time of 27:56.
Jerry McCarthy then lowered the record again minutes
later with a 27:45. Moriarty was fastest of the entire field on the night.
Richard Cleverly was runner-up in a time of 27:03, some 31 seconds down on the flying junior.
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