The last time stickybottle bumped into David Gaffney he looked pissed off as he stopped at a service station just outside Kilbeggan, with his father, after the the National TT Championships in June, even though he had finished 3rd. A few words of encouragement did little to lift the mood and he didn't start the road race a few days later, due to illness.
Fast forward just over three months and Waterford's Gaffney is on top of the world. He has made history in becoming the first Irish cyclist ever - in any age group - to claim a road race medal at the UEC European Road Championships, winning bronze in the fiercely competitive junior category in France.
The frustration of the illness that hit him in the summer, followed by a serious crash at Ain Bugey Valromey Tour (2.1) in France weeks later, is now relegated to a mere footnote in the story of Gaffney's season. He deserves this. He took himself off to Europe to race the minute he turned junior, willing to suffer and suffer to become a better athlete.
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"It was the best feeling in the world," he laughed when asked how he felt crossing the line in Guilherand-Granges on Friday with a major championship medal sewn up. "I came across the line with tears in my eyes.
"I went a lot earlier and I didn't think it was going to stick. I just thought I'd try my luck because I felt brilliant on the day. I was just delighted, yeah...."
When he made his move on the final local lap, the eventual winner and runner-up had already taken flight from the select group; Germany's Karl Herzog winning by 13 seconds from Italy's Roberto Capello, with Gaffney 3rd at 43 seconds.
"There was a lull in the group with one lap to go," said Gaffney. "I'd tried a few times already but I was getting reeled back in. Then I went again and I just committed to it," he said of getting clear and looking to capitalise, though with climbing still to come.
"They were trying to pull me back in the group. The lads in the (Team Ireland) car were telling me the Dutch were doing some turns to try and pull it back."
However, Gaffney was gone and said he was determined to take his big chance. And having placed 11th in the junior TT at these Europeans, he had the goods for a TT effort to the line.
"I was going up the climb and I heard all the Irish shouting at me, 'you're in third place'. And I was only 30 seconds off first. So they were even telling me 'don't worry about the gap behind, worry about the fella in front'. So when I heard that, it really gave me a second wind, I just flew up the climb. It was actually surreal."
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Clockwise, from top left: Hugh Mulhearne, Toby Sweetman, Matthew Walls, Rory Condon (Photos by Sean Rowe)
Gaffney had already done well to make the select group of 12, saying he was in a group that went away after the first climb, just after the start, though it was brought back. However, on the second passage of that climb - the 7km Saint Romain de Lerps crested at 50km - the bunch fractured and the first section split over the top and down the descent.
Gaffney was up at the front, and was in the move as it went, thanks to the others in the Irish team working to put him there. He was full of praise for junior TT silver medal winner Conor Murphy as well as Toby Sweetman, Matthew Walls, Rory Condon and Hugh Mulhearne.
"There was huge gaps on the descent, but I was in the front group there," Gaffney confirmed. "And the Italian guy who ended up second was away solo by the time we got to the climb."
Gaffney said when the race entered the finishing laps the main climb on the circuit was "brutal" with "everyone going crazy up it" on the first passage. By the time they reached it again, the winner and runner-up were off the front and Gaffney was third man on the road, heading for bronze, after a big move.
"All the lads were a huge help to me every single one of them, especially getting me into the bottom of the big climb," he said of his team mates. "They were just absolutely brilliant and I couldn't say enough about them, all of them.
"It's been a tough summer, I'm just so glad I could finish the season off with a bang. My parents were there as well, and I was so happy seeing them coming across the line. Everyone was going crazy, the whole Irish team... It was just limbs everywhere. There was some atmosphere."
Asked if he felt he was up for a good ride before the race, he said: "I was always fucking dreaming of it and then after the strong TT on Wednesday, I was thinking 'I'm feeling good now'...
"After the TT I had it in my head, just imagining myself on that podium. But I didn't actually think it would come down to that. I can't believe it, I was aiming for a top ten but it just went above and beyond.
"At the start of the year I was delighted with the form but then I had the Leaving Cert, and then in France I had that bad crash. And that just makes this so much more surreal, it means so much more after my crash."
