RYAN SHERLOCK
Saturday's stage took us 158 kilometers from Tramore to Kildare.
There were two climbs during the race and that is where most of the damage was done to the field.
The An Post team hit the category 2 climb “full gas” to stop others from attacking the race leader and by doing so, reduced the peleton from 155 riders down to around 60!
I'm very comfortable in the mountains and hills so it was good for me.
The next big test was the category 1 climb outside Carlow.
This time, the An Post team were not able to control the front and other teams started to attack – by the time we got to the top, this left only 24 riders in the front group (there was a break of six riders already ahead from 10 kilometers into the race).
I was hoping that this group would stay clear as I would be more comfortable sprinting from a group this size (and with the hills, the fastest sprinters were not there) than a bigger group, but unfortunately, many of the riders that were dropped on the climb caught on while we descended.
This left it all together with a peleton of 60 riders sprinting after Martyn Irvine into Kildare. Martin showed his world class track riding skills and held off the group.
I had been positioned well but a near crash pushed me from the front to the back of the peleton just to cruise in. I was very happy not to have fallen as at the time, we were traveling at 60kmph!
And then we got to the final stage of the Ras – Kildare to Skerries.
Today was my last chance at pulling off something – I woke in the morning and my body felt great.
Sometimes you wake and know your body can respond well, and some days you can tell that things may not go well.
I felt good, no, I felt great.
I warmed up for 20 minutes before our start, had a caffeine gel and felt ready.
The first 20 minutes were fast (we averaged 50kmph on small roads with cross winds) and everyone wanted to get into the break.
I was off the front several times knowing that a move would escape soon.
This is where it went downhill... Rattle rattle, clunk clunk – I looked down to see my rear derailleur starting to fall apart.
A mechanical issue where the only solution is a different bike.
I dropped to the back of the peleton but to my dismay, I could see that there was a second group about a minute back – riders that were not able stay with the early frantic pace and behind that was my team car with my spare bike.
By the time I got onto my spare bike, the peleton was gone and I was with the second group on the road – race over.
I was very frustrated and it took me a while to relax.
I had felt really good all day and see it as an opportunity lost, but on the other side, I had no noteworthy crashes during the week and am finishing the race feeling strong.
The rest of my day was spent riding along to Skerries and enjoying the nice weather.
The more you train, the more you become 'lucky'.
To ride a good Ras, you need to have the training in – you don't necessarily need to be lucky, you just have to make sure that you are not unlucky – if my mechanical occurred 15 minutes later, I would have been able to get back onto the front peleton – it is a simply thing like this, for a GC contender that can end their race.
Finally, I would like to thank my teammates, Stephen Gallagher, Paidi O'Brian, Adrian Crowley and Stephen Halpin for great support, encouragment and 'craic' during the week and the team management of Philip, Martin, Theo, Stephen and Miles.
We had a great setup and system in place for the weeks racing that was the envy of all the professional teams – thanks guys – you made my 'job' for the week, the best job in the world.
See you next year.
Ryan
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/E6wjHPd5ejk/post.aspx
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