Rider Profiles

Rider Profile

My name is Joe-Nathan Matar, I am 2nd year U23 riding for Orwell Wheelers. I’m currently enrolled in college at Maynooth University completing a Business and Sports Science degree. I started my journey in cycling through duathlons and triathlons when I was 9 and started focusing solely on cycling as a 2nd year Junior. I’m from Belgium but lived in Dubai most of my life, and only moved to Ireland in the Summer of 2022, when I started focusing on cycling, joined Orwell that same year and started off my racing journey with Orwell the following season.

2023 Season

Originally a track and cross country runner, I moved to cycling in 2023 after being plagued with injury during my late teens and early 20’s. I had respectable times over 5k (14:52) and shorter distances, which I figured would lend itself well to road cycling. After moving up to A2 in my first 2 months of racing I spent a Summer training and racing in Boulder, Colorado, USA, as a mesh of J1 life and training camp. I found decent progression there but ended up having a nasty crash guesting for an American team in the NCL Denver pro crit race. I moved home with a long list of broken bones but wasn’t deterred from giving it another go.

In 2024 I raced for Dan Morrissey Pissei Cycling Team, picking up a few results but ended my season early due to exams and a concussion. My goals for the 2025 season are to be at the pointy end of the national races and Ras Mumhan/Tailteann.

Notable Results

10/05/23 - Crotty Cup A3 - 1st Place

A slightly different profile, taken from the Irish Daily Mirror article by Pat Nolan 21 FEB 2025

Ex-Donegal star still asking 'what might have been?' after five hip surgeries ended GAA career

It was eight years ago this week that Keaney’s football career ended, having been told by an orthopaedic surgeon that he had the hips of a 70-year-old

A meeting of Galway and Donegal brings together two important strands of Luke Keaney’s identity. He’s from Donegal town though his mother, Deirdre, is a Galway native and her father, Tom ‘Pook’ Dillon, won an All-Ireland in 1956. Keaney harboured an ambition of winning Sam Maguire himself and standing alongside his grandfather with the trophy and while he died in 2019, that ambition had already long been parked by then.

Rider Summary

Passionate road racer with one year of experience, specializing in sprints and long endurance rides. My love for cycling began when I started commuting to school by bike every day. Before discovering cycling, I played table tennis in my youth, but it never truly excited me the way cycling does.

2024 Racing Key Results

Racing Journey:

 2024 Training

January & February

The month started off with some running and a marathon to switch it up a bit. After that, this period was focused on base miles. Hardly any intensity. Probably not enough. Using strava’s zone two, the easy spins were just too hard as well, it was all practically tempo. But I got good volume in at a low enough intensity so it was a good preparation for the coming season. I did what I could with the knowledge I had.