BMC 100km Classic

It’s taken me a while to get my rear end in gear and write this. I like to think that this is down to the amount of time it’s taken me to recover. The race was almost 2 weeks ago, and yet I’ve only just managed to get back on the commuter bike – mainly due to the crook knee I have managed to acquire.

Honest.

It was my first attempt at 100km on a mountain bike. I’ve done 100 on road before (Around the Bay in a Day) but that was relatively flat and relaxed (took us about 3 hours 45 minutes at quite a gentle pace). I had no doubt however, that 100km off road would be in a whole new world of pain.

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Paul O'Connell

I’m really looking forward to this Lions tour now. Almost as much as I relished the start of the tour in 1997. Perhaps thats a good omen? For some reason I didn’t care much about the tours in between.

So we have our squad, some I got right, some I didn’t, but as I predicted, there were certainly some surprises, the major ones being the inclusion of Alan Quinlan, Tomas O’Leary, Simon Shaw and Keith Earls.

Inevitably, there were a few shoe ins that missed out. Ryan Jones being one. For a player who was touted as a potential Lions skipper, this was a great surprise. There was no place also for Delon Armitage, whose ability to play across the backs, coupled with some excellent form in the 6 Nations would have made him an excellent tourist.

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Phil's Lions Squad

Twelve months ago, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this years Lions tour. South Africa were recent World Champions, and the Northern Hemisphere sides were all looking average at best. It was looking likely that the Lions would struggle to make an impact in any of the tests, and would even be lucky to win some mid week games against strong provincial sides.

Wind the clock forward though and things now look a lot rosier. I am now of the belief that this Lions tour could turn out to be very exciting indeed. With the six nations turning out to be one of the more hotly contested competitions in recent years, coupled with a few individuals really raising their game, there are a certain amount of selection headaches for the Lions coach.

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