Star-date: 10th May 4pm, Blackrock, Co. Dublin
Quick rush from work — “sorry have to go”, “I’m on a couple of days off”, “yeah sure, a nice couple of days off relaxing around Ireland”, “taking it easy”, “What about this project milestone ? – ehh! it’ll have to wait until Tuesday”…blah blah blah … if they only knew !
And even if they did know – they wouldn’t understand
I was leaving work to go on a journey where no man (that i knew at least) had ever gone before.
My mission was to participate and survive (and hopefully live to tell the tell, whatever about actually blogging the story) 800 odd kilometres around Ireland in a four day period.
I knew no one travelling – my ‘usual suspects’ in these long distance cycles had found other things to do … mutterings about doing their hair, catching up with long lost friends from school, whatever …. so be it I was on my own and ready to roll.
The Tour Of Ireland Challenge (TOI from now on) is a brand new event introduced only this year by a pair of Northern Irish brothers, one of which (Joe) has previously represented Northern Ireland in cycling around the world. Although i had never heard of him, he is supposedly well known in cycling circles in Ireland … “Joe the Pro” … as even in his heyday he was a completely dedicated cyclist. And as it turns out he’s my height – so that’s another excuse gone for my lack of ability.
The two brothers saw the growing nature of “Cyclo-Sportive in the continent – L’etape, Gran Fondo Campagnolo, Le Marmotte, Etape du Dales in the UK and many others – even the Wicklow 200 here in Ireland. And instead of messing around they jumped to a multi-stage event, which would be taking the sport to a new level of a sporting challenge to the particiapants and requiring serious attention and resources.
And so the brothers Barr conceived the TOI Challenge, and got the Blazing Saddles on board, who brought some razzamatazz to the event as well as many years experience in managing long distance cycling.
Their offer … 4 days – 800 kilometres – along the highways and byways of our fine country allowing the amatuer “rouleurs” such as me the experience what it’s like to ride a proper multi-stage race.
For me there were other attractions and reasons to take this on …
- At the start of the year, when setting out my targets and outline plans for the coming season I wanted to do something different – i had looked at other possibilities such as the London-to-Paris 3 day event which is on next week.
- Not having to travel too far would be a big bonus – no flights, no accomodation to work out.
- Price was right – and for what we got in return the entrance fee was well worth it.
- First time of running, so maybe i’m going to part of history ? Who knows where this event will go in the course of the next 10 years.
- The TOI was linked to a charity – no i’ve no idea how much either the two brothers made from this event or the National Council for the Blind in the guise of the Blazing Saddles, and i’d have my thoughts that the event was ran at a loss – hopefully between all the sponsors picked up along the way that everyone ended up somewhat happy.
That was it then, last February – March I think i got the form downloaded from the web, sent off the deposit … and therefore i had to get the training in so as to get around the course.
There’s maybe another post some other time as to my training, or lack of, but let’s get on to the TOI story itself.
Thanks to Mrs Yendor I was professionally “transported” to the meeting point in Lurgan County Down … which is one strange place to host a cycling event. But read on …
