A double winner of the Rás and well known figure in the sport and the bike business, Philip Cassidy previews Stage 1 for you.
“Before you even look at the route of stage 1 you can always be sure the opening stage of any Rás is going to be a fast and tense affair. The Irish riders have obviously targeted this race as the big goal of the season. The county riders will be nervous as they start into eight days going up against some of the pro teams. And the full-time Irish guys and the foreign pros know that this is a race they really need to get something out of. So that all raises the nerves on the opening day.”
“From my experience of riding the race it is very difficult to get away on the opening day. But it does happen, and there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen this year and for a break to gain a lot of time.”
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“This year the opening day is 147km from Dunboyne to Kilkenny. The stage is not overly long but there are two categorized climbs – a cat three at Farnons after 102km and a cat three at Glenmagoo at 120km. On the face of it, neither of those two climbs will split the race. The second one is 27km from the finish. There is an off chance that if a breakaway is not clear at that point, one could go clear there and go head-to-head with the chasing bunch all the way to the finish.”
“But it’s more likely it will split long before that. The first part of stage 1 is on local enough roads, they are not big main roads. I would not be surprised on that kind of terrain if you were looking at a large group, up to 20 or 30 riders, going clear early on and making it all the way to the finish and possibly with a big gap.”
“There are a lot of Irish guys going well this year from a number of teams and of course you have the An Post team looking to this week as a big goal. The second part of the week has some very hard stages. So a lot of the guys who fancy doing something in this year’s race will definitely see the best opportunities in the opening few stages. So expect today to be a fast one.”
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