Cycling Reports

Mullingar Grand Prix,

Mullingar - Sunday 20th May, 2001

After arriving at the last few races in a state of disorder and panic, I chose to motor down to Mullingar a little early, so that I could chill out before the 2pm start. The traffic was light, and I pulled into the car park of St. Loman's GAA Club about 12:15. This left me with plenty of time to things like eat and oil my chain... it was only after last week's race that I realised that the only thing lubricating my gears was some citrus degreaser. Not good.

Before 1pm, a bunch of us (three Cycleways MAD lads, and one guy from Lakeside Wheelers who didn't seem very enthusiastic about racing. He claimed that the only reason he was riding was that the local paper had said he would be!) wandered down to the dual carriageway. I don't know if it was happy coincidence or by design, but the FBD Milk Rás was due to pass within 300m of the sign-on of the Mullingar race, and actually came along the same roads, if in the opposite direction, as our race. Anyone living on the Mullingar-Delvin road must have felt confused by late Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, not long after 1pm, a long streak of 190 riders came shooting down the slip road onto the dual-carriageway... all in one bunch save a couple of stragglers. I strained to try and recognise riders, then spotted someone sticking their tongue out... and typically, it was the man himself, Aidan Crowley (Cycleways), who ended the day 7th on GC.

By 2pm, our own event had swung into action, and we were heading towards Delvin, with 100 or so in the pack. The pace was steady, and there we were hurling Raven's riders off the front like it was going out of fashion. The action was lively, the roads were mostly good - I don't think I heard anyone shouting 'hole' for the entire race - and the weather was grand, if overcast. The race was a little under 55 miles - 5 laps of a left-handed course that was mostly on decent enough back roads, but used a mile or so of dual-carriageway. The course was fairly flat - a few drags, a couple of little rises, and one fast climb in the last mile or so of the circuit. Most people, it seemed expected it to finish in a bunch sprint, which was music to my ears.

Into the second lap, and we were all together, more or less, with riders shooting off the front in short lived attacks. About two thirds of the way around, with one rider about 15 seconds clear, I sprinted off the front, and got up to him quite quickly. I don't know who it was, didn't even pay attention to what team he was in - if you reading this, let me know, as my mind lay on other things at the time. As I passed him he jumped on, and I kept plowing up the next drag, with a high pulse well in the red. Where I had jumped, it was quite wooded, and out here was open, and windier than I had anticipated. Belted through the last left hand junction on the circuit, and up the next couple of drags... we seemed to have a good lead for a while, but when up the road, I always get a looking-through-the-wrong-end-of-the-telescope effect, so maybe it wasn't much. My newly-found business partner and I weren't working terribly well together, and on the climb up to the end of the lap, the bunch suddenly arrived behind us. Nick, Karl and Anto (I think it was those three) surged passed and started putting pressure on. Lactic acid and all, I jumped into the lineout and recovered pretty quick, surprising myself.

The bunch was a long line as we crossed the line, and down again onto the dual-carriageway. I was riding steady on the front, with a little break up ahead that was really going nowhere. The third lap was more of the same, attack, attack , nothing staying away. I slid back into the bunch to rest from my exertions... and I think it was this lap, as we were doing about 55kmph that some rider came down with a sickening smack on the descent preceding the climb up past the church. Apparently he wasn't too bad - or so I'm told.

On the fourth lap, everything changed. A group of 11 or so riders disappeared off the front. I arrived up from one of my little sojourns down the field to see them going, and a Cycleways MAD rider amongst them. Turned out to be Niall O'Shea, and I found out that one of our men was up there, Johnny Moran. We sat tight and let the chase try and bring them back... but there wasn't many people chasing, and the gap went up to 40 seconds by the end of the lap.

Onto the fifth lap, and a mile or towards Delvin who's standing by the side of the road? Our man Johnny...with wheel in his hand. Damn, here we were with less than 10 miles to go, and we had no-one in the break. Ravens riders - Joe, Ciaran, Andy, practically everyone in fact, bar myself and I think Anto started attacking, to speed up the bunch. I tried to weigh up the options. I felt good, but not so good that I could blast along on the front to help the chase and still feel certain of a good sprint a few miles later. With the twisting backroads, it was hard to tell how far away the break was...popular opinion held that they would be caught, but coming down to that last left hand turn towards the finish line, I counted the gap to be still at 30 seconds. Catching them seemed unlikely.

I don't know what those guys were doing up there in the break, but they lost loads of time - by the time we were into the last couple of miles, they had lost about 15 seconds, and on that last climb before the finish, they were within spitting distance. Although the front of the bunch was in one long line up the hill, I didn't believe we were going to catch them. Taking some crazy initiative that only ever seemed to appear in the last mile of a race, I tore up onto the front, and accelerated into a steady sprint. Anto hopped into the line behind me, and I rode up the breakaway steadily, quick enough to get there, but not fast enough to provoke the sprint. As we rounded the curve into the final 200m or so, I saw that the entire break were paused, looking at each other, waiting for someone to start sprinting, and apparently oblivious to our arrival. My bolt was shot, but I had a little left in my legs, and tried to go left. Anto and some other riders shot to my right and got round the break, dashing for the line...Aidan Yeats from Usher was first. Anto Moran, from Ravens, came in third.

I had decelerating riders from the break ahead of me, and had to go wide, but was still passing people on the line... after we crossed I somehow had the presence of mind to count riders ahead of me, and I counted eight or nine... so I was around tenth or so. Last time I'd finished that well up was in, let me see... August 1990?

As we pedaled back down the dual carriageway towards the GAA club and our cars, I was in an impenetrable good humour. Since I started racing a couple of months ago, I had a tough time in most races, but finishing well-up, and avoiding any mishaps or mistakes, is a definite boost.

Email: daev@irishcycling.com