2023 Road National Series Changes
Following the reintroduction of the Cycling Ireland Road National Series for the 2022 season, and a review of last year's events with riders, coaches, officials and organisers, there will be some changes to the Road National Series for 2023.
In 2022, there were 3 separate series of events run – a Senior Men, a Junior Men and a combined Senior and Junior Women series.
For 2023, there will be a Men’s Road Series and a Women’s Road Series with Seniors and Juniors competing in the same event.
After this review, Cycling Ireland has decided to run the 2023 Road National Series as two events to help ease the pressure on organisers to provide the vehicles and support for three races on the road at the same time.
This change has been helped by the UCI decision to remove Junior Gear Restrictions for 2023.
It was also felt that having the Junior Men as a separate race in 2022 had resulted in quite small bunches and had not produced aggressive racing. National Coaches had observed that riders tended to watch each other throughout the race.
This combination of Senior and Junior men will allow for more positive racing - as was observed in the Women’s National Series with the categories combined into a single event.
Despite the two categories being ran as single races – there will still be points available for the top 20 in each race and Junior riders will be able to compete for prizes in the Overall League and Junior League Prizes – prize lists are currently under review.
There will also be up to two Cycling Ireland National Series Leaders Jerseys available per Series after the first round – the Overall Series Leader and Series Leading Junior.
If a Junior is leading the Overall and the Junior league there will only be one leader's jersey presented.
Should National Series Organisers have any issues with the distance proposed for their event for Junior riders to compete with Seniors, these should be referred to Cycling Ireland Technical Consultant Paul Watson (paul.watson@cyclingireland.ie) to help arrive at a workable solution.
The first round of the 2023 Road National Series kicks off on March 26th as Blarney CC play host.
More information on the Road National Series can be found here.