The race dates for the most popular series, The Fixx Series, have been announced, and are as follows:
25 September
15 October [Sat Evening..think Dark]
13 November
11 December
The first race location has been announced as Grange Castle - if you are a newbie, a great place to start, not too technical and usually dry and very fast.
As well as the races above there will probably be the DCCX series at Punchestown racecourse - great location, tough course and very handy to get to for us.
The season culminates with the National Cahmpionships in mid-January
So to the training. We are very lucky to have a great training ground in Bunclody - the old Golflinks behind the FCJ Secondary School. Perfect place to train, as we have seen in the last few years.
Training will be every Tuesday evening at 7pm (that's ready to tide at 7, not arriving at 7
), and usually lasts until around 8.15.We'll start on Tuesday 23rd AugustThe session is usually something like:
2-3 warm up laps - approx 15mins
Intervals - approx 3 x 15s flat out, 15s rest, x 6. These are done as a group to simulate race action
10min cx specific drill - 30s flat out, 30s running shouldering the bike, 30s rest - repeat for10 mins
CurlyWurlys - 100m sprints with 360 degree turns - this is for practicing tight turns and accelerating hard out of corners
2-3 warm down laps
A CX race is 45-55 mins of flat out action so training simulates and prepares for that. We'll tweak it as the season goes and will probably vary the location every few weeks and do some hill intervals for examples, also some races if we have good numbers
If we have newbies, we'll also include extra skills drills - tight turns, off camber riding, dismount/mount, over barriers etc..
The training is really good fun - even if you don't intend racing you will get a lot from it, notably fitness and vastly improved bike handling. You're welcome to try it on an mtb, but better to be on a cx bike. If you don't have one, there are quite a few around the club so maybe you can get a loan to try it out
Last year we had a good crew going racing, hopefull this year will be even better. The races are mostly in Dublin parks, so easy to get to, family friendly, and as they are short the whole day isn't gone
See y'all on Tuesday 23rd, any questions post them here