Yvonne Doran will be racing at Rás na mBan from September 4th to 8th. As well as Yvonne, Pinergy-Orwell will have many Club Members involved with the Race Organisation. Read on for details on how you can spectate.

In what is expected to the the strongest Rás na mBan field in a long time, Yvonne Doran will aim to complete her fifth Rás.

Yvonne is fresh off the Newry 3 Day, which ran over the August Bank Holiday.

Yvonne will be guesting for Irish race team, TC Racing.

Crew

Off the bike, Pinergy-Orwell Wheelers will have an array of people aiding with the running of the race.

In his familiar place at the front of the Peloton, will be Dave Tansey in Neutral Service 2. He will be called into action to drop behind any Breaks that get a small gap. The riders own Team Cars are called up should the gap go out to one minute and keep trending upwards.

Stephen O’Shea trades his usual rear of the peloton place for a Lead Car role this year. It’s a difficult task, as he will need to keep an eye on the cars behind him and maintain a constant distance from them, whilst reading the directional arrows on the road ahead of him.

Luke GJ Potter will be Radio Manager and perform Lead Car Briefings. It is Luke’s fourth Rás na mBan. He’s previously been setting up the QOHes, driving a Lead Car and setting up the Finishes with the Finish Crew.

Barry Redmond is on the organisational committee for Rás na mBan. Barry has been devising improvements to a number of areas of the race over the last number of years.

Damien Long returns to Rás na mBan to work on the Finish Crew, setting up the stage finishes.

Voice of Rás na mBan, Declan Quigley will be on stage at the finish informing the gathered crowds of the action. Declan’s dual role will also be to produce a daily highlights package of the race for Social Media, and combine these for a show on Eurosport and RTE.

Social Media

Last year, Rás na mBan did a fantastic job of live reporting the Race on Instagram Stories and Twitter. Rás na mBan Facebook will have the daily highlights show. So they are worth a follow on the trio of platforms.

Rás na mBan: Facebook / Instagram / Twitter.

Live Timings

As the riders cross the finish line, at both the stage finishes and on stages with a finishing circuit, they will ping the live timing. You can see the live timings at the following link.

Website: rasnamban.com/2024-results-live-feed

Parcours

Stage 1, Wednesday, will be the traditional Callan Circuit Finish. The riders will depart Kilkenny at 16:45 on Wednesday the 4th of September 2024. With an expected uphill drag sprint finish at 18:35. There will be three passages of the finish line.

Stage 2, Thursday, will leave Portlaoise at 11:30, go over The Cut, and do a loop around Mountrath. The finish is expected to be about 14:15. This stage’s parcours was raced super hard last year and put a lot of riders OTL. There will be two passages of the finish line.

Stage 3, Friday, is a new Stage. It will head due east at high noon, all the way to Gorey. It traverses some of the foothills of Mount Leinster before its 14:45 expected finish time. It will be some of the first racing on some of these roads, so there will be a large number of riders receiving “Uh oh…” emails from Strava as QOMs and KOMs are put out of reach for a very long time.

Stage 4, Saturday, is an early start at 10:00, and takes in Thomastown twice before finishing on The Rower climb around 12:40. The winner will receive all the spoils of war on this stage, as she will get QOH Points, Green Jersey Points, the Stage Win and this year for the first time ever, 10 bonus seconds. There will be two passages of the finish line.

Stage 5, Sunday, will be the Morning Time Trial around Kilkenny castle with riders undertaking the 2km loop from 09:00 in reverse GC order.

Stage 6, Sunday, is the Criterium race around Kilkenny Town Centre. It starts at 12:30 and is expected to finish at 13:45.

The Route and expected arrival times at the towns that the race passes, is available on the Rás na mBan website.

Website: 2024 Route

Come and Watch

Sunday is the main day to spectate. Kilkenny is about a 1h 15m drive from Dublin. Orwell has had, for the last number of years, a contingent of supporters attend the criterium. It would be lovely to see more Orwells attend this year. There may be a small food market, as well as a number of town centre cafes. So you can have lunch and watch the race.

Hopefully we can get a group photo with Yvonne as she ticks off another Rás na mBan.

Another option is Saturday’s uphill finish to The Rower is about a 90 minute drive from Dublin. You can see two passages and go for a spin to see how difficult the finishing climb is.

Friday's passage of Bunclody, also presents you with the option to view the race and ride Mount Leinster.