My Season

I’ll be leaving ERC this season and moving to Spokes junior racing team for next year, but I won’t forget the lessons I have learned from Jarlath and racing for this fantastic team.

ERC have given me many great opportunities to race at a high level at events such as the junior tour of Ireland with Logan, Ciaran and Louie (with lots of help from Ali and my mum and dad) and the spokes/limits Kingdom junior classic.

Even though much of my season was hampered by injury I have still managed to get a few podiums and plenty of top 10s.

My favourite memory of the season was the Stirling Crit on the campus where I bridged solo to the break and then managed to stay upright whilst people were running to the finish in front of me.

Thanks again to Jarlath for letting me join the team, being a great coach and supporting my decision to join Spokes.

MY Year at ERC

After a fantastic year racing with ERC, its with a wee bit of sadness that I am leaving ERC, I have the opportunity to now race for SPOKES junior race team. I have had many great experiences and achievements racing in the red of ERC.

I have competed in races round the country and my international race thanks to ERC. One of these experiences I would like to share is junior tour of Ireland, as you will know from previous blogs it was a really tough race with a lot of effort being put in by Me, Ciaran, Chris and Louie. But what many of you won’t know is the effort put in by team manager Jarlath, in the organising and booking hotels etc. for this race.

I have to again thank Aileen, David and Ali, because without the support of these parents I wouldn’t have been able to race. It was brilliant racing against some of the best junior bike riders alongside my fellow teammates.

Another one of my memory’s was the Motherwell, fife and Ingilston Crits where Me and teammate Zak Loney were always at the head of the field leading the charge and sometimes coming away with the win or a podium, which was great as the red of ERC was always being raced with pride.

I have raced from the north of Scotland, to local Crits and races in England and have always been grateful to the support of other ERC riders.

Eastern promise road race was fantastic, well organised and I really enjoyed it, it was hard and the weather was against the riders.  I was the 1^st ERC rider home that day and received the lantern trophy, I was quite proud of this.

ERC junior racing team isn’t about one rider, but it does have ONE manager and Jarlath you have been awesome. You took a chance allowing me to join the team and I hope I repaid that with my professionalism, dedication and 12 podium positions.

It was like a prober racing team, strength and conditioning classes, Saturday rides, how to train, Skype calls; discussing everything from nutrition, to tactics, race preparation. Even race days there was the motivation talks. I now know how much work you do for the junior race team and…. it’s a lot, thank you thank you thank you.

 Next year I will be riding UCI ranked races, more National rounds and races abroad and I am quite excited about this.

I would like to say a huge thanks to everyone in ERC who has supported me in any way, from cheering me on, to the organisers and Marshalls at races. It really is a great club.

To all the new juniors, Train hard, listen well and believe in your abilities. I wish you all the best of luck next season and hope that you get as much out of ERC junior team as what I did.

Thanks

Logan

 

 

Arctic heroes of tomorrow Road race

16th August
Bike and kit packed I arrived at Edinburgh airport for my flight to Oslo international. I met up with the other riders who I would be sharing this awesome experience with. After getting through security I bought a pack lunch from WH Smith, although If I Knew how expense Norway was I would have bought a whole load more. We got on a shuttle bus which drove us to a Norwegian plane. 1 hour and 30 minutes later we arrived in Oslo, There was a 3 hour layover before the plane to Alta so we explored what the Oslo airport had to offer which was mainly magnificently overpriced sandwiches and staff darting around on scooters due to the airport being fairly big. Once we arrived in Alta we collected our luggage and hopped onto a big travel bus which drove us too Hammerfest which was where our accommodation was. Once we arrived it was around 9:00pm so we quickly built our bikes up and then grabbed some food from the cafeteria before going to our rooms to have some chill time.
17th August
After breakfast Me and the team went out to recce the course. The course was brilliant. There was long climbs with long steep downhills and fast windy roads. It was a really testing 7km circuit which I would do 11 times tomorrow. After the Recce we all split up to do our activation rides, we then met up again to explore the city of Hammerfest. When we got back to accommodation we cleaned our bikes and received our racing kit and numbers. This Kit was specifically designed tops for each team. There were really good quality and smart. At 5:00 we went to the team presentation in the city centre. This was the first time I had ever been to a team presentation and was really exciting being invited on stage with a load of people watching. Once this was done we got the bus back to where we were staying for dinner. It was hard sleeping at night because it didn’t get dark, at 1:00am in the morning it was as light as 9:00pm in Scotland which was quite unusual. I did however get to sleep (thankfully)

 

1st picture, far right                           2nd picture, 3rd from right

18th August

It was Race day!!! 20 minutes before the race and all riders where being individual called up to the sign on podium and where introduced to the crowd. Didi the devil was there and after the commentator called our names he would repeat it back and cheer which was cool and funny. (For those who don’t know, Didi the devil attends all the big races and is often found at the side of the road dressed up as a ……. devil with his pitchfork cheering). After sign on I lined up on the start line with the Norwegian champ to my right.

 

1st from left

When the race started we raced to get on the back of the neutralised vehicle. It took us all the way to the bottom of one of the hills. When the vehicle started the race everyone started sprinting as if it was the finish. The race got lined out immediately and I was sitting about 5th in line. We took a right hand corner at 35mph and started to race downhill. I was sitting on a guy’s wheel who was sitting on the top tube. I then sprinted past him in case he crashed. 100metres later he went down after a bigger rider knocked into him (thank you Spiderman sense). When we hit the 1 Km to go sign for the first time many riders where dropped as the gradient started to ramp up. After 3 laps of racing I was in the lead group with around 20 riders. The pace hadn’t let up, in fact it went even quicker. Each lap I would lose the wheel on the descents and catch back on during the climbs. The descents were horrific, the speeds the guys were taking it was unreal. A good few guys paid the price and crashed. I didn’t fancy going home with a broken frame so had to drop of this pace but would dig to catch up on the uphill’s although this did take its toll. The crowds where crazy with many fans waving flags and they were dressed in crazy costumes. With 5 laps to go I didn’t have the energy to chase them back on the climb. I was quite gutted about this as my descending had let me down but also happy that I was able to hold on to some of the best juniors in Europe as a 1st year junior. I joined a chasing group of 3 riders and completed the last 5 laps with them. The race had blown to pieces with many of the riders being pulled out before the finish. I was able to complete the whole race. One of the riders I was riding round with raced the Junior tour of Flanders along with a few other classics which was really cool to hear his stories of racing. What was good was knowing that the pace in this race was the same as these monument classics. I can look back on the race and I know that was the fastest and hardest race I have ever done or been exposed to.
Overall it was brilliant Experience, many thanks to Scottish cycling North East and hopefully will be able to race it next year.

Junior Tour of Ireland 🇮🇪 stage 4

By Logan McLean.

Stage 4 junior tour of Ireland
127 gruelling kilometres was what faced the ERC team as we set our place on the start line. Stage 4 was one of the hardest stages in the race with a category 1 climb standing tall 70km into the stage. The corkscrew was notorious for its switch backs and steep gradients.
When the race began an American team called Hot Tubes, who also had the yellow jersey went to the front and began to raise the pace making it hard for riders to break of the front.
10 km into the stage, three Holowesko Ctadel riders broke of the front dragging with them a race favourite riding for the American Dornier team. The four riders quickly built up a lead of 30 seconds. I just felt that it was time to go, to counter this attack and try to bridge across with Mark Smith from the Leinster team, a rider from the national Irish team and a rider from Lux Specialized.
Within minutes we had reached the first breakaway group and now formed a group of 8 riders, we all began to push on. It was an amazing feeling being in the break as we were getting constant time gap checks from motorbikes and we were also being filmed.
40 km into the stage we manged to get a time gap over minute meaning team cars from the convoy where able to race up the road and support us as we tried to lengthen the gap.
Hot Tubes were chasing hard pushing the peloton to the limit. My teammates took advantage of Hot Tubes doing all the work and settled in to the bunch.
When I and the breakaway reached the “The Corkscrew climb” I put in a bigger effort on the front to try and collect some KOM points which were on offer at the top of the climb. I managed to sprint my way to second on the KOM collecting 12 points putting me in 3rd place in the KOM classification. I wish now that I had started chasing KOM points the day before.
Over the climb and after a quick decent the breakaway had thoughts of could we go all the way to the finish. The breakaway started on the Cat3 climb and again we took time out of the chasing peloton.
I picked up 3 more points after coming second over the cat 3 climb at 85km. Now it was a race to the finish, 2 riders from the breakaway where dropped and this left 6. We were racing as hard as we could go.
With 10km to go we had 33 seconds on the peloton with Hot Tubes and now Team Swift taking up the effort.
Sadly with 5km to go we were caught which caused great frustration and sadness, now I know how the tour riders feel, I was beyond gutted. I then jumped on to the peloton and rolled in with the sprint finishers losing no time.
Chris and Louie sitting middle of the peloton also got the same time as the winning Team Swift rider.
After the stage I learnt that Ciaran was feeling unwell and had to abandon after bravely starting the stage in hope that he would feel better. A really brave effort for Ciaran who isn’t as experienced in Tour races as Chris, Louie and Myself, Ciaran did himself proud. He then became part of the Jack and Victor support team looking after his team mates
I look back at this stage with what could have been if Hot Tubes weren’t as strong as they were, but I rode 110km with a small group at an average speed of 43.48KPH/27.04MPH on a lumpy course with 2 big hills, I did ride out of my skin.
I think possibly this was the hardest/fastest I have ever worked in a race and NOW I am really proud of what I achieved today and can appreciate all the training I have done.
I can’t keep thanking my support team enough, Aileen, David and Ali for what you did for Team ERC and Jarlath from afar.

Junior Tour of Ireland: Day 3

Today’s Stage(3) was a 105km road race that took the field up the cliffs of Moher which consisted of a category 2 climb. The race started fast with many of the riders trying to break away from the peloton. With 30km to go the cliff of Moher loomed with USA based team Hot Tubes setting the pace. When the climb started I had an unfortunate mechanical meaning I had to chase for 30seconds onto the group. Thankfully legs where strong and managed to make my way back through the peloton all the way to the front.

The rest of ERC managed to make it over the climb and make it through the convoy to catch back on before the finish with all of us finishing comfortably in the bunch, ready to go for stage 4

Race Report by Logan McClean

Interesting coincidence! Today Dan Martin won a stage at the Tour De France……. Back in July many years ago he also won a stage of the Junior Tour of Ireland

 

 

Junior Tour Of Ireland: Day 2

Update on Junior Tour of Ireland – Tuesdays 6.2km prologue went alright considering I had come down with some sort of illness on Tuesday morning; Top 100 😂😂. Today’s road stage was the ‘west Clare’ stage of 95km went around the South coast of county Clare. After a proper sketchy and nervous neutral zone we started and unfortunately me and a few other riders came off after a very fast compression and my handlebars ended up at 90° to the front wheel. Luckily support was quick to fix it and I was chasing back on within a minute. I lost 3 of my gears and couldn’t spin fast enough through the convoy to chase back on. I chased solo for 20k until having to change bikes. Eventually me and a few other riders formed the grupetto and had a laugh mostly the rest of the stage. Finished just outside 100th place – yas 😨😂. The rest of the boys finshed in the front bunch, but Ciaran just got dropped at 40km to go. Tomorrow is another day though and 105k’s.

Race Report : By Louie Doig

 

Senergy Criterium- What a feeling!

Hi! I’m Ciaran McSherry and this is my first season of racing and couldn’t ask for better teammates or a club to race for! Here’s a little bit about me and how I won my first race.
Wow! That really felt amazing, after a very tough couple of years it was such a brilliant feeling to get my hands in the air. The last 2 years have been very up and down for my family and I, with my little brother Reon (now 13) being diagnosed and battling with Leukemia. To this day the battle continues but he’s in a much better position now than he was 2 years ago. All of this has obviously impacted our lives greatly and especially with exams at school happening it didn’t make it easy to train. On the 25th of October 2016 Reon needed a bone marrow transplant and I was a perfect match so I donated over a litre of bone marrow to him which seemed to be the cure for him until exactly a year later when he relapsed. Since October last year I’ve donated over 7.5 million stem cells and another couple bags of lymphocytes, none of which have completely cured him but the new treatment he’s on seems to be working well and he’s back to being a cheeky little brother.

After poor conditions and mild hypothermia at Gifford forced me to abandon and a mechanical on the second last lap of Stirling’s Crit On the Campus cost me a good place (I think a win), I was really looking to finish this race without anything else hampering me! With the new kit from the club and Endura I was excited to start what would only be my third ever race. Before the race started I took a couple laps to get a feel for the course and I knew it would be fast and sketchy with some of the other Cat 4’s not being the best bike handlers (to put it nicely). I managed to get myself to the front of the group for the start but managed to miss my cleat which caused me to drop a few places. UGH! The first corner caused a couple of riders to come off the track as they took it too quickly, I managed to navigate myself up to the top 10 places for most of the race meaning I wasn’t going to get caught out by an attack or a crash. Someone attacked off the front about 7 laps in and I went to follow but Rafael De Giacomo Araujo, who’s in the ERC race team, came up in front of me and paced me up to the attack. The group weren’t letting anyone go though and we soon called it and waited up for the bunch. Rafael continued to help me by attacking to tire out the strong riders and make them work in our favour, he also did an excellent job bringing attacks back. When it got down to the last 2 laps though it was all down to me and my legs felt great, no-one really attacked in the penultimate lap but as soon as we crossed the line for what would be the second last time an attack came and I was quick to get on his wheel and sit in the slipstream for about two-thirds of the lap until he tired. Another attack came, I jumped onto his wheel and sat in until just before the final sweeping left hander where I nailed it around the corner (thanks for the advice Logan) and up the slight rise to the line. I managed to open quite a big gap which gave me enough time to celebrate.

As you can see I’m quite happy to take the win and wasn’t just going to do a little celebration. Nah. I went all out. full thing, punch the air and the classic arms aloft in the air. Everyone was so nice after the race too with people coming and saying, “well done!” and “nice one!” but it felt amazing to see my teammates after the race giving Rafael and Steven ‘man’ hugs. Chris also came and said well done at the end, but I didn’t recognise him till I saw his bike, that’s the problem with only seeing your teammates in their kit! (sorry Chris). Finally, to have my Grandad, Dad and Girlfriend there to watch, it was great to win in front of them and hopefully this will be the first of many, now on to the Junior Tour of Ireland with Chris, Logan and Louie!

Signing off for now, Ciaran.

Gifford 3/4

Myself, Logan, Louie, Ciaran and Aiden were all racing at Gifford this weekend on the undulating course near Edinburgh. It was myself and logan’s first race in ERC Kit, so we were looking to make a good first impression in it.

After the slippy warm up in the rain on the rollers and the cosy briefing the race neutralised section started with all the ERC riders huddled right behind the lead car in the near biblical conditions until the flag dropped. Ciaran did a good job of bringing back some of the early attacks on the first climb, so I could take the first KOM, then it was attack after attack until the 3 riders who filled out the podium broke clear around lap 2 where the pace of the chase, mixed with coldness (and cramp in Louie’s case)  shed most of the bunch so only a small group of around 11 including me and Logan were left to chase. Joe Wilson won with myself coming 2^nd in the bunch sprint to take 5^th overall with Logan close behind.

It took 30 minutes after the finish to stop shivering and we all wanted to do was go home to have a warm shower. The brutal rain and bitter coldness lead to quite a few riders pulling out. I have been racing for almost 5 years and have never been in conditions as bad as that so respect to everyone that finished. It was a fantastic race so thank you to all the marshals, organisers and commissaires that made it possible.

The fantastic photos from Jarlath Flynn photography

Lancaster salt Ayre Crit 1

E/1/2/3 race and 3/4

With the beast from the east battering Scotland with its cold and snowy conditions, it was time to go west and then a big way south all the way to Lancaster for my second race of the season. I was competing in the 45minute long cat 3/4 race and also the hour long E/1/2/3 race. With a tough day of racing ahead I made sure to get my rest the day before the race. With the car packed me, my dad and fellow teammate Chris travelled down to Lancaster with our first race at 3:15pm. There was a slight change in music taste for the drive down, instead of Iron Maiden it was the Notorious B.I.G which got us hyped for our race. When we arrived the excitement soon began to build as I spotted the large number of cyclist collecting there numbers for the race. Me and Chris quickly got changed into our cycling kit and made our way to sign on.
Salt Ayre is a purpose built closed circuit cycle course 1500m long and about 4.5m wide. It was very nearly flat all the way round.
Once the numbers were pinned on, we set out our rollers and began to warm up for our imminent race. The car park next to the race circuit was filled with the sound of roller rev outs, cyclist bantering wither sram or shimano is the better group set and also the spectators walking round discreetly picking who their favourite for the race win is. With 3 minutes before the race began I took my spot on the starting grid on the front row. I looked behind just before the race set off but was unable to see the back of the grid. It was a fair sized field. The first couple of laps went by really fast as the riders jostled for position. Me and Chris stayed close to the front and took turns in chasing down attacks. In the middle of the race 3 riders managed to escape and got a 30 second advantage over the peloton. I decided to try and bridge across but when I got into arms reach of them they decided to attack which meant I was unable to follow them because of my effort trying to catch them. I eventually made my way back into the peloton and prepared for the sprint.

One of the riders in the group of 3 got dropped and then swallowed up by the peloton meaning that whoever won the sprint to the line would claim the last spot on the podium. With one lap to go me and Chris had placed ourselves well near the front of the bunch for the sprint. with 200metres to go I was boxed in both sides and had to push my way out, thankfully with 150m to go I was out in front and was able to start my sprint. I managed to win the sprint and finish 3rd overall in the race

Chris also put in a strong performance and finished 7th.

No podium, as there was no podium and I had about 10 minutes to recover before having to make my way to the start line for the E/1/2/3 race.
After grabbing a fresh bottle and gel I was once again on the start line. This race was 1 hour long which was going to hurt already tired legs. The race was extremely fast with a lot of the elite riders constantly trying to attack of the front. With 3 laps to go Chris put in a strong attack alongside Elite rider Cameron Jeffers who has plenty of experience in last minute breakaways, unfortunately Chris was caught just before the last lap.
I was preparing for the final sprint but soon realised it was not going to be easy as I got pushed off the track by a much bigger rider than me, I bunny hopped back on and tried to move my way up the field some more but only for someone to slam on their breaks in front of me which meant I was unable to execute my sprint.
However both me and Chris finished in positions which meant we could gain points towards our cat 2 licenses, I finished 14th and Chris finished 11th. Overall it was a brilliant day of racing and we both achieved good positions in both races.

Thank you to Ellen Isherwood at, https://www.flickr.com/photos/100713057@N05/ for the awesome photos

Thanks Logan

VELO29 – CROFT CIRCUIT E/1/2/3

Post by ERC Junior Logan MacClean
Hello,
First off a big thank you to ERC and Jarlath for accepting me and welcoming me to the club.
After a hard winters training it was my first race of the season at round 4 of the Velo 29 winter series at Croft racing circuit. Me and fellow team mate Chris Hordon entered the E/1/2/3 race in hope of getting points towards our Cat 2 licences. On Friday night Chris Mum and Dad took us to Newcastle so we were able to stay the night and not have to travel so far to the racing circuit the next day. Sadly we were unable to go to the night clubs and pubs as we were too focused on our race the next day. After a good night’s sleep we set off on the Saturday morning to Darlington where the race track is. When we arrived it was the usual race procedures that followed, collect numbers and race chip, greet other fellow cyclist, listen to a couple Iron Maiden songs and most importantly setting up the rollers at the finish line so we can catch a glimpse of the sprint finish of the race before ours. With 10 minutes before our race started we completed a recon of the course so we never got caught out by any dodgy pot holes or tight corners. The race started very fast with attacks happening constantly by Cat 1 and 2 riders. Chris and myself where always close to the front of the race and where able to follow majority of these attacks however none of them were able to stay away. When the race began to settle down two cat 1 riders where able to escape the peloton and they got a big enough gap and eventually took 1st and 2nd place. With the race speeding up again with 4 laps to go Chris had a dig of the front to test the legs. However the peloton wasn’t letting anyone else away, but with two laps to go Chris and myself quickly began to weave our way through the bunch to put ourselves in a good position for the sprint. The home straight had a block headwind so the race would often slow up by 3mph. Chris and myself read the race well and knew that there would be attacks coming on the last lap. I took advantage of this and just as the bell rang for the last lap I did a last gasp effort and was able to pull away from the peloton and stay away to the finish to finish 3rd with the rest of the peloton breathing down my neck at the finish line.

I am really looking forward to racing for ERC this year and hope that I can get on the podium again but this time wearing the RED and BLACK of ERC.

Thanks
Logan