Daire Feeley has gotten his season off to a strong start with victory in the Mick Lally Memorial, the main event at the Dublin Wheelers Open Races in Summerhill, Co Meath, on Saturday.
The Roscommon man, who has been lodged at the top of the domestic rankings in recent years, was also winning for the first time in the colours of new club Burren CC.
He said when he saw so many Irish riders in Spain and other places logging big miles in recent weeks he became concerned but was now happy he had stuck to his own regime.
"It's important to hit the ground running because… It's very important, let's just for the talking rights," he told stickybottle after the finish today. "Put it this way, there would have been a lot of talking if I was 2nd and this is, let's say, putting the silencer on the handgun."
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Feeley came to the line today on the Dorey's Forge short sharp climb with Luke Smith (Moynalty CC) and managed to get the better of him in the sprint.
They had gone clear in a five-man breakaway on the opening lap of four today. At the end of the second lap they managed to distance the other three; Ronan Killeen (Lucan CRC), Evan Keane (Orwell Wheelers) and Jason Kenny (UCD Cycling Club).
That trio were then mopped up by eight more riders: Patrick O’Loughlin of Carrick Panduit, Mark Dowling of VeloRevolution, Padraig O’Sullivan of Burren CC, Ruairi Byrne of UCD, Josh Callaly of Team Campana, Con Scully of Dan Morrissey, Andrew Maguire of Team Stafford Bonded and Joe Nathan Matar of Orwell.
However, while the 11-man chasing group had the two leaders back to within 10-15 seconds at one point on the final lap, it went back out again up to 30-40 seconds.
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"Second time through the finish line I gave a little test of the legs and Luke countered over the top of me," said Feeley of attacking at the halfway point. "I went with him and that kind of split the group. And the two was just had to ride hard all the way.
"Both of us were looking behind us all the time, it felt like (the chasers) were never more than 30 seconds away from us. And we just made an agreement saying 'look best man wins, we'll see what happens'. And the two of us kept riding all the way.
"You can never trust Luke," Feeley laughed. "He has a very good poker face and he's either flying or he's fucked, and there's no difference in the way he looks. I thought he might fleece me there because the winter training hasn't been the most desirable with the arrival of a new baby. But this is good for the confidence, I'm not complaining.
"Luke made the mistake of going to the front close to the finish and gave it a bit of gas, which probably took his edge away just coming up to finishing climb there.
"I've made that mistake so many times on this finish. I've been second place and third place, so many times here. That little climb is worse than a long 3-4k climb because you just can't get on top of the gear early on. But we did it."
Though Feeley became a father for the first time over the winter, and said he was enjoying it immensely, parenthood was a new factor to work into the equation during the off-season. However, he said the winter was "always consistent" with between 14 and 15 hours on the bike each week.
"You're always questioning are you doing enough because when you're stuck at home training in Roscommon and you see lads doing 30 hours a week in Spain you're saying 'oh shit, I'm going to be going shocking here'.
"But it's very important to focus on what you're doing yourself. And there's a lot to be said for having 10 years of racing in the legs, it makes a big difference."
