'Any hope of a high placing ended for over 100 riders. I was one of them'

Ryan Sherlock

TODAY'S stage looked like it was going to be reasonably straightforward.

We leave Portumna, our finish town from yesterday, on mostly flat roads, not too small, a three kilometer climb 90 kilometers in followed by some rolling roads along the coast into our finish in Kilrush.

Well, it was straightforward on paper.

As I mentioned yesterday, the weatherman was predicting strong winds – a steady 70 kilometer per hour westerly with 100 kilometer gusts!

If I was home and I saw weather like that, I would either ride my mountain bike or the indoor trainer – I wouldn't be on my road bike.

Like yesterday, the race started fast, well no, the race started hard – the severe headwind meant that average speeds were very low.

In fact, by the time the winner finished the race, it was the slowest race (speed wise) I had been in on a road bike!

After several kilometers of attacks, a group finally got away.

Over the next 20 kilometers, several other riders made efforts to bridge and then around Gort, a large bunch split off the front of the peleton.

With the winds, it was going to be impossible to bridge across and as I mentioned yesterday, any hope of a high placing in the overall classification ended for over 100 riders.

I was unfortunately one of them.

These things happen in bike racing, especially Irish bike racing which is known as being especially unpredictable.

The rest of my day was spent trying to keep my bike upright in the severe winds while we traversed some of Irelands most stunning roads.

Todays race was over, so I conserved as much energy as I could and tried to enjoy the view.

Five and a half hours riding, in these conditions, gives you a lot of time to think.

I'm frustrated though, as my aspirations for an overall placing are over, but I do end up looking at the bright side of things.

I'm now far enough back that I'm not a threat to any of the riders fighting for overall glory and that could possibly be useful while in breaks later in the week.

The wind is to die down a little tomorrow, and we will be soon hitting the mountains – my playground.

Tomorrow will possibly be the toughest day of the race.

We will race 175 kilometers to Castleisland on mostly main roads. The winds are supposed to moderate a little but they will still cause havok with some hills at the end to shake things up.

I expect something like today again!

Until tomorrow night...

 

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/6rNJfgKQiAU/post.aspx

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