 DUBLIN
SKIP GOREY 3 DAY
By Dave Walsh
Saturday March 30th, Stage 1
[Apologies to everyone for the late race report...
hard disk failure to blame!]
This is my first report since my crash in the
Cycleways Cup in Navan - I did ride a Leinster League race a fortnight later, as
well as the Dublin-Drogheda, but kept a very low profile in both.
The next weekend was the Christy McManus Memorial
in Roundwood - I turned up, feeling a bit all over the shop, but up for it. The
race was hard, fast and lethal - the roads were in a terrible state, and there
was a couple of crashes. My right gear changer had been giving me guff, and on
the backroads of Wicklow, it finally packed in, constantly leaving me stuck on a
low gear during a lineout. I got up the hill in Rathdrum without any problems,
but on the road to Laragh, I got stuck chasing downhill on a 53x17. I drifted
off the back, feeling dire, pedaled back in low gears to Roundwood. The next
day, we headed for Carlow, and I was really feeling sick, so I didn't ride - I
ambled out the road to watch the race, and that nearly did me in. 16km, and I
was knackered.
Rested all week, slept as much as possible, and
found myself at the sign-on for the Gorey 3-Day... I had little to complain
about though - we were just setting off to Brittas from St.Mark's GAA Club when
Paul Reid and Anto Moran got tangled in each other, with Paul getting a right
hard smack off the road. Didn't stop him from riding the race though.
 Heart
rate monitors are dangerous things - they're incredibly useful for training
with, and they act as a kind of physical rev counter when the pressure is on. I
rarely, however, look at mine during a race, except sometimes before the start,
in order to help get my pulse down by relaxing. Riding up the hill to Brittas,
my heart rate was about 30bpm higher than it 'should' have been. At the start
line, I was still revving too high, but when we got going towards Blessington
and the speed went up, my heart rate dropped to a normal level. Still felt dire.
The weather? Dry, but it wasn't particularly warm.
The wind was in our faces the whole way down. I
wasn't in good form at all, so I kept it conservative, didn't fancy being
shelled out too early. I have, of course, omitted to mention, that two ex-pros
riding; Lawrence Roche and Sean Kelly. I don't think I was the only rider in the
pack to have found it a little weird to be riding alongside the latter, the very
person who finished 12 Tour de Frances (started 15) and inspired many of us to
take up competitive cycling in the first place.
There was 178 riders listed on the start sheet - I
think 177 started, and I was riding as 142. It's a big pack to bring through the
backroads of Wicklow, Carlow and Wexford, and there was some shockingly nervy
riding going on. I didn't see or hear it, but the first crash of the day was
before Baltinglass. Some close shaves and we were into the town. I did one of my
usual 'leave it till the last possible minute to break' jobs coming into the
left hand bend over the Slaney, on the outside of the bunch, and let a big roar
of 'jasus!' when I saw the 4WD stopped right in my path. I clipped through with
less than a foot to spare.
 Squeezed
through the town and into the countryside again, through lots of little hills
and fast sweeping bends. On the descent before Hacketstown, I could see a break
up the road and climbing towards the village. Anto had punctured and a couple of
the lads had gone back for him, when Paul Reid came by on my inside with a
'c'mon'. I took his wheel, and I swept through wide and fast on the bridge,
giving me some momentum onto the hill.
I was taking the hill on the big ring, 53x19 or so,
but ended up on the little ring, because of people stalling up front, and just
before the chicane, Shane Stokes and I nearly tangled (yeah, that was me,
Shane). The pace was smooth up and over, and it wasn't long before were
streaking down into Tinehely and onto towards Carnew, where the bunch ascended
Holt's Pass, a long draggy climb. As we came into Carnew, I was fighting hints
of cramp. So was Brian Taafe who was along beside me - he'd not been doing much
either, due a post-race prang a month previous.
I managed to prevent the cramps from kicking in and
got up the hill in Craanford easily enough. The bunch was bitty down the
backroads, and as came to the last dip before the hill up and over to Camolin, a
rider from Lucan lost control a head of me, somehow flipping out from the right
to the left side of the road, clipping Anto Moran and John Dillon and knocking
them both down. I veered around, but lost ground - another Lucan rider, Noel
Beggs, I think, was beside chasing the bunch up the hill. We got back on, and
Anto reappeared.
Out of Camolin and towards Gorey, and just a few
miles to go. Excellent, nearly home, and I'm feeling grand. Anto came by,
muttering dark words about the race not being over soon enough. Then, Aggggggh!
- I let a roar out of me as I got up of the saddle - my left thigh and hamstring
went into a spasm. Not a cramp I could ride out, no, I nearly fell off the
bloody bike trying to shake it off. And this was going uphill.
I drifted off the back, and lost 150m just trying
to free my leg. I ended up on the 42 ring just trying to get my leg going,
before finally getting a pace going on the big ring. I wandered in 3 minutes shy
of the bunch, feeling a bit frustrated... but mostly satisfied. I'd started the
day unsure of how far I'd make it, and here I was, in Gorey, and still in the
race.
 Sunday
Stage 2 -
Time Trial, Clough-Gorey, 3.8 miles Stage 3 - 4
laps of 15 mile circuit ,Gorey-Craanford-Camolin-Gorey
The time trial was won by John Wall, knocking race
leader Paudi O'Brien into 2nd position on the stage. Two of my Ravens teammates,
Anto Moran and Eugene Murtagh, finished well up, 6th and 11th respectively. My
tri-bars had given me guff when attaching them, so I rode without them. I warmed
up on the way out the road, but definitely didn't have any kind of oomph in my
legs. My cousin, John Ryan (yep, he of the big red motorcycle who marshals us
around the roads) gave me the push off at 11:22, and I was off bundling down
towards Clough at 40mph. My legs were screaming from the day before, so I had to
content myself with ironing my legs out. I ambled in at a poor 8:40, 1:30 off
the pace, but cramp free. Afterwards, John Wall admitted that he'd warmed up for
two hours before the time trial...
Stage 3 -
At 2:30pm, after a bit of a chillout, and after
Paudi had been given the yellow jersey, we were off into the wind on the Carnew
road. I was up close to the front, and wasn't aware of the nasty crash that
occurred. Dave King-Smith told me that it involved riders pretty much sliding
along the road surface. Nasty.
 Up
ahead, I was oblivious, and despite my sore legs, had no problems on Craanford
Hill. The riding on the backroad was nervous, and I was glad to see the main
road. The morning had been dry, of overcast, but we started getting a touch of
drizzle, just enough to make the surface slick in places.
Round to the end of the lap and all was well, but
for some reason, the first stretch of the Carnew road stung me pretty badly,
much worse than Craanford at all. On the backroad, I was content with slowly
moving position, when I suddenly found myself in amongst a load of bicycles and
bodies, winded, facing the wrong direction, and thinking 'not again'. Tommy
McGowan was in the ditch beside me, and with remarkable reserve, requested that
I get myself off his bike. I got up, bent over my bike trying to get my
breathing back a bit, while checking the wheels and getting the chain back on.
There were bikes and riders everywhere, it seemed.
I walked around the chaos, climbed back on my bike
and started chasing after the bunch, which was vanishing around a corner. After
about a mile, some riders caught me, and we reeled in a couple of others. Jim
Maguire and Terry McManus were in the group, and they were all ripping along.
They lost me on one of the hills before Camolin, my lungs still wrecked by the
crash, and I fell in with a group containing Brian Taafe and Derek King. Beating
along the main road, it started getting silly, my legs failing to function at
all on one of the drags. This was a bit weird, as I didn't feel all that bad - I
just suddenly went from pulling on the front to being off the back. Most of the
way to Gorey I rode on my own at full clatter, with the bunch in site, but never
close enough to latch on... I'd make back 100m, then loose 150m. I was riding so
hard my eyesight was blurring.
On the last hill between Clough and Gorey, another
bunch appeared behind me, and I scooted in behind them on the downhill, and
coasted over the line behind them. The group of 5-6 riders almost dropped me on
the Carnew road, but I hung on, and we pedaled around at a fairly steady pace. I
chose to ignore the sharp pain in my left wrist, a result of the crash.
On the last stretch before Camolin, I was feeling
great again, and was doing my bit, with another group in sight. We caught them
after Camolin, and damn it, if I didn't fade again, and spent another 10 or 12
minutes chomping at the bit 300m behind the newly formed bunch. I came across
the line making all sorts of faces. Someone shouted 'Dave!' and a camera
flashed. Out of the corner of my eye I realised it was my mother, brother ,
sister and flatmate. I wasn't sure if whether they were going to make it or not,
and here was I putting in a dismal performance. I fought off the temptation of
pulling out as I passed the B&B, electing to ride 15 miles on my own rather
than give up.
After all the big chases I was truly knackered, and
concentrated on finishing off my food. I tacked up Craanford Hill on a very
little gear and tried to get a good speed going to Camolin, as it was damp and
getting cold. When I was riding up one of the infernal drags from Camolin to
Gorey, I heard a familiar voice behind me. It was Paul Reid - he'd had trouble
getting wheels after the crash (ended up with a jumping chain), and had been
riding on his own for ages, some of it chasing with me in his sites. 'It's
5:25', he said, riding around me, 'and we're having dinner at 7:30'.
Paul, bless him, had enough power in his legs to
lead up the hills, I tried to balance it up by riding a 12 on the front for the
downhills. We coasted in about half an hour after the bunch. For my part, I had
to console myself that at least I hadn't compounded a testing situation by
giving up. I was still signed up for the third day.
Monday, Stage 4 - April Fool's Day
After spending a fitful night sleeping in the
recovery position - my ribs and wrist were in tatters - we woke up to a morning
of torrential rain. The gods must fancy themselves as comedians. By midday it
was still teeming down, and Gorey was full of grey-faced shivering cyclists, so
eager to get warm that some of them took off ahead of the lead car. Conditions,
however, are always better after the race gets going, everyone gets warmed up,
and the weather becomes a background issue. A mile out the road, Kelly was
sitting up at the front of the bunch, already taking his cape off.
Not having made it right to the front quickly
enough, one the first fast downhill I let a couple of bike lengths out between
myself and the rider in front. There was still some twitchy riding, and I wanted
to be prepared for any sudden braking. Just before Carnew, I found myself too
far back, and launched a big campaign which got me into the top 30, where I
resided comfortably most of the way to Tullow.
By this time the bunch had well settled down, and
there was some decent racing going on, with constant attacks and a steady speed,
none of the stop-start techniques that had been making life difficult earlier in
the weekend. Before Tullow, Eugene punctured, and Anto eased off the front to
wait for him, just I was tearing to stay in contact with the wheel in front.
As we got into Tullow, the boys would have got back
on easily, as the Commissaire slowed up in front of the race, effectively
neutralising it through the town, apparently because of a funeral. For a mile or
so of the Dublin road, everyone used the opportunity to eat before the pace
picked up again. My ailments from the day before weren't bothering me much, but
I was still having the powerless leg problem, and as we lined out over the
bridge in Rathvilly, it all started catching up on me again. By Baltinglass I
was tailed off, content that I'd made it that far, and planned to ride the
distance at my own pace. A couple of miles out the town, I caught Graham and
Tommy, who had been riding up for training, and I sat in while they set the
pace, chatting to a guy from the Cycleways Liverpool team. At this point the sun
was out, and the rain was gone.
When I finally crossed the finished line, I had
lost a terrific 53 or so minutes for the entire race, and had finished in 103
place, out of 117 finishers. What had happened, I wondered, to the other 60
starters? Tim Ahern had nabbed the stage, with Frank O'Leary in second place, as
I'm sure he'll be glad to hear me mention.
Slightly embarrassed by my placing, I reflected
that a few days beforehand I had been sick in bed... and weird as it may seem, I
felt better on Monday afternoon than I did at the startline on Saturday.
Now to get some decent form...
daev@irishcycling.com
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