Club Spin 18th Feb

After last week’s great turnout for the Pre-spin Marshalling course, we once again met in the spiritual home of St. Tiernan’s Cycling and Adventure Club. It was an unexpectedly nice morning as we assembled in Park Vale. After belting over, I was too out of breath to participate on the route discussion and was delighted to hear we’d be heading towards Powerscourt and Roundwood. As the Racing group headed towards Foxrock and an eventual encounter with Puck’s Castle, our Touring group of six set off for some short climbs.

Brian demonstrated some rather nice wheelspins on the steep section up to Powerscourt while the rest of us could only look on in awe at his bike handling skills. At times he seems part man, part machine (part mouth). With Charlie already showing signs of great climbing ability, we decided to ride ahead of the group and down towards Kilmacanogue before turning around and flying gracefully up Long Hill. After bidding farewell to Michael who had to get home early, we set off up the climb. While I had to throw my bike all over the road just to get up the drag, Charlie sat comfortably all the way up without breaking into a sweat. I’d like to say he crested the hill majestically, but I was so far behind, I couldn’t even see him.