Shane Smith rode his first race yesterday and, erm, found it rather easy. The Moynalty CC clubman just attacked from the gun and rode the rmeaining 51 kilometres by himself!
By Brian Canty
Shane Smith is a name you’ll hear lots more about this year if he keeps up the form he showed yesterday in winning the A4 event at the Annaclone GP.
The 24-year old was competing in his first ever race as an adult and with “very basic tactical knowledge” he did the thing that felt most natural to him; ride hard. Very hard, in fact.
He took off out of the bunch and was not seen again before the finish in the Banbridge CC-promoted event, winning in the end with minutes to spare on the bunch which was led in by Jonathen Kyle (SMCC Lisburn).
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“Before this year I only ever rode over the summer, but it wasn’t serious at all,” the winner said.
“My last race was eight years ago and I was 16 and completely under-prepared.
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“It has always been a personal ambition to see what I can do on a bike before I'm too old to find out so it’s kind of been eight years coming to get to this stage.”
Coached by well-known Irish cycling rider Barry Monaghan the plan was to go hell for leather from the gun.
“Barry said to break away from the start and keep pedalling until you blow up or get caught.
“I just tore away at the start and was expecting to be in a group of around 10 so we could work together but when I got to the first corner and looked around there was nobody else behind me so my immediate reaction was ‘oh crap, this is going to be a long race’!
“I thought I'd look like an amadán and get serious abuse for trying to break away if the peloton caught me so I decided to just bury myself and see how far I could stay away for.
“I was hoping the group would be disorganized and I could make up time on the hill so I put in a big effort over it and for the rest of the lap,” he explained.
He need not have worried as over the course of the four laps his gap just grew and grew.
“Once I got in a rhythm I just tried to keep going as I was.
“The gap remained at two minutes and on the last lap I thought there’s no chance I'm after leading the whole race to lose it so I gave it everything and thankfully came home first.
“It was completely unexpected but I'll take it.”
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