Winter Spins Red Group

Non-existant user wrote:

...why the need to split them from the main starting point ...Not sure why only Red members get to benefit from the move to the park but any Orange/Yellow/White coming from the Northside just have to stick with Dundrum.

You're still getting it backwards here though. The main starting point on alternate weeks is the Pope's cross. It's the other groups that are splitting off.

Nothing to stop the group from leaving Dundrum to head over to the Northside,

Fine individually or in small groups, but not so pleasant or free-flowing in a group of 12-15 riders. Less so again if you have 15 or 20 groups each separated by one set of traffic lights from the next.

or alternatively why not get everyone to meet up in the Park every few weeks.

This is exactly how it is supposed to be, except for the beginners. The difficulty is that many of the beginners have been equally nervous of venturing to a new start point as they have of moving up to a new group. So say the Yellow spin is down to start from the park, and a lot of them arrange to meet at the shop anyway, and go on their own informal spin instead of the club spin, or worse, jump in with the White spin and push it at a Yellow pace. The scheduling is reflecting the reality that we can't make people go on a spin which they don't want to.

The aim is to encourage all of our new riders who stick with us long enough to try all of the spins, but some people take longer than others to pluck up the courage to try new things. Spins like next weeks White and Yellow are steps to help that.

Is the red not a racing group?

Alan wrote:

Is the red not a racing group?

It's a training group! Racing is for Summer time.

This weekend's red group was pretty ideal, I thought: tough (particularly into that wind!) but with the group holding together, respect for calls of "steady" and nobody racing up the hills. Everyone tired but not wrecked at the end.
Great to see a few red spin first-timers in the mix too.

On the topic of starting from the Park, I completely agree with the approach of doing this every other week. However we do need to bear in mind the hesitancy factor.

A lot of people pick a group on the day, depending on who else they see in the group and whether or not they think they will be able to keep pace with them. The quoted speeds for each colour should alleviate this in theory, but in practice it doesn't stop people being hesitant to step up. As someone said earlier, this mitigates against people heading to the Park as they are afraid they will be out with racers doing incredible speeds, (not the case in my very limited experience).

Also there is the fact that the Park seems very far away from the Dundrum area, meaning an earlier start and later arriving home. Again in practice, it's only about 20 minutes from JDs to the Park, so this is not really much of an issue.

It might help to get more going to the park if we were to arrange an informal meetup at JDs for 8.30 to head on to the Park for those who don't know where the start point is or just want some moral support heading over to the north side :-).

Regarding the 2nd Red group yesterday - we had a big group of about 16. It was fantastic to have those numbers, which meant that there was about 28 Reds in total. However 16 was a bit too many in a single group and we should really have split it at the start into 2 x 8 or similar. Also, there was a bit of confusion over the route and we ended up doing the Ballymore route for a total of about 85k.

Anyway, these were small points - a very enjoyable spin at an average speed of about 28km/h.

Cheers,
Diarmuid.

As the Dispatcher yesterday I would make the following observations:

1. I am familiar with the faster leisure cyclists and so I encouraged the fastest ones to join the Red Group. Traditionally the Red group has been for the racers however there are now a growing number of leisure cyclists who are taking up racing or can manage a Red pace (advertised as 26kph+).

2. The result was a large number across the road when I called for Red, about 24. I split the Group into 2. The first Red Group averaged 31kph and the second Red group averaged 28kph.

3. I also identified the stronger Orange cyclists and I asked them to go in a fast Orange Group, which I said would be 26kph+. That fast Orange Group (Fizzy Orange) averaged 26.6kph.

4. That left a large group for regular Orange, but without the faster paced cyclists or with cyclists who are well able to do a fast pace but are happy to have a steady Sunday spin at the advertised pace of 24 to 26kph. There were 3 Groups in this category and as far as I know all averaged in that pace range.

5. There were over 120 cyclists at Joe’s on Sunday and it is only when trying to get everyone away that you get the sense not only of the numbers but of the dangers of those numbers crossing the road and gathering outside the shop. At one point I had to stop the traffic so that cyclists could get across the road. We need to be mindful of safety issues as the numbers swell. This is probably likely to be less of an issue as the weather deteriorates but cyclists need to be very mindful of keeping themselves and their bikes off the road, on both sides.

Brian wrote:

Dave wrote:

Alan wrote:

Is the red not a racing group?

It's a training group! Racing is for Summer time.

And training is for Winter time. Can we cancel Orange and Red spins until November?

The off Red, Burnt Orange to slightly Pink racing group starts in November from Joe's to the Park and back

I am "leading" an "Dark orange/ light red" group tomorrow. We'll leave from Joe Daly's at 8:30 and cycle to the park as a group. I'll leave after all Reds have left but before Orange. I'm planning on doing this every 4 weeks when the Oranges start at the park. So it will make it easier to move up for Oranges. I don't think we will do a coffee stop, at least not a long sit down one.

I contacted all Orange sign-ups if they are interested in joining my group. Some are, some replied they might not be ready yet and will try in 4 weeks.

I think that there will be a few "dying Lights" reds that want to join the group, this is fine, but we will keep an average of 28-29.

Just to get a sense of numbers can you reply HERE if you want to join this group and if we meet you at Joes or the Park.

Sorry about the cross post

I was hoping to cycle with red or orange tomorrow and a bit confused as to whether or not I need to sign up somewhere? I am a club member and did a few spins last winter. Is the sign up page for everyone or just newcomers?

kind regards
Glen

Hi Glen,
There's no need to sign up for spins if you're a member. Just rock on down and enjoy.

13 rolled out from the Pope's Cross this morning. There was a good few new faces which was great to see. We lost our way ever so slightly and ended up in Trim but took in Dorey's Forge on the way back.We did a little over 100 km with an ave of 31 kph. The Group worked well together with Eddie keeping us all in check, thanks Eddie. See you all next week.

For next week there was an error in the schedule for Red. I just fixed the route and updated the schedule. Bring your climbing legs.

JD-Enniskerry-Old Long hill-Roundwood-Annamoe-Tomriland-Newtown-Roundwood-Long Hill-Enniskerry-JD

~91km
1500m ascending
www.strava.com/routes/1100274

Enjoy ;)

Another big turnout for the Red Group this morning approx 25. We split the group in two and 14 rolled out from Joe's in the first group. Very challenging route, thanks for that Jules, with an average of 27 kph. We lost our way a couple of times but all in all a very enjoyable spin I'm sure there's plenty of tired legs resting up this evening?

13 rolled out from the Popes X on a cold and somewhat frosty morning. There was some ground frost about but fortunately the roads were ok and we all managed to stay upright. The general consensus was that the pace felt a lot slower than usual even though we averaged 30kph over a distance of 90+km. I think the cold might have had something to do with that? The sun warned us up on the way back so all in all a very enjoyable spin. See you next Sunday.

Due to the below zero temperature forecast for tonight/tomorrow morning a few of us from the Red Group have decided to meet at Joe's tomorrow morning instead of the Popes Cross with the view to maybe heading out the coast road.

Hi All

It's that time of year again so just a quick reminder that the Red Spin is starting at the Popes Cross this Sunday at 09:00:

Park-CartonHouse-Maynooth-Kilcock-Clane-Sallins-Castlewardenhill-Newcastle-Lucan-Park 100km www.strava.com/routes/852389

This is a very flat spin and will average a steady 30kph. I would encourage anyone who is racing, looking to race next year or is just looking to go that little bit faster than Orange to join this group.

11 Reds rolled out from the Popes X yesterday morning. It was a cool fresh start to the day but weather overall was perfect with little or no wind. We averaged a nice steady pace of 30kph on what was an extremely flat spin total elevation gain 320m and average HR for the group was 134 bpm (range from 129 to 142 bpm). Just as an observation I noticed that the Orange group/s averaged a speed that was more in line with the Red Group and that was with approximately 500 mtrs more elevation? If you compare the Red and Orange groups average heart rates there is very little in it (Red 134 vs Orange 138) so this would suggest that a number of Orange riders should actually be joining the Red Group as averages of 28 to 30kph in Orange will ultimately deter strong Yellow riders from moving up to Orange.

A good group, not sure of the exact headcount but I think it was 16, of Reds rolled out from Joes this morning on a glorious Autumn morning. It was great to see some of the regular Orange guys take the plunge and join this mornings Red Spin. We missed the turn after Ashford so ended up taking the shorter route back to Roundwood. We averaged 28kph taking on each climb at a nice steady pace making sure that no one was dropped so all in all a very enjoyable Spin.

Thank Ken, it was very enjoyable. I'll be back in 2 weeks time for some more.

For anyone considering trying red out and who knows me from the spins over the summer - I found the pace very do-able and the spin was a lot easier than some of the crazy climbing summer spins. So stop considering and give it a try.