Felix English (left) was active off the front at the Eddie Soens but still did a great gallop
Irish international Felix English (Rapha Condor-Sharp) was disappointed with the result of last weekend’s Eddie Soens Memorial at Aintree but said he is looking forward to a busy few months ahead with the team and the Irish national set up.
“I’m riding the Tour of Taiwan which starts on Saturday and is a week long, then in April I’ll ride three Nations Cup races with the Irish U23 team; Tour of Flanders, Cote de Picardie and ZLM tour.”
After those races are done, English rides a number of events in the UK including the Tour of the Reservoir and the Milton Classic. Next up is the An Post Ras before the next major goals of the national road race and TT championships and the U23 European Championships.
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“In September the team will be split between the Tour of Britain and a stage race in France. I may be given an opportunity to ride a few rounds of the Tour Series crits.”
Looking back on his promising sixth place in the Eddie Soens last Saturday, English said he was disappointed with the outcome.
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“The race ended with an OK result but I'm still a little frustrated with the final outcome,” he told stickybottle just before departing for the Tour of Taiwan.
“We definitely had the potential within the team to win. But we’re still all very new to each other, so every time we ride together we’ll improve and hopefully the results will come with that.”
”It was a pretty fast race from the start, because we needed to avoid being caught by the junior group (which was given also a lap in the handicapped event). After a few dodgy manoeuvres getting around the groups we had caught, the race started with attacks coming from all around the circuit.”
“We had guys covering most of the moves, and at one point a decent sized group of ten riders went clear with two of my team mates; Mike Cuming and Richard Handley. With five laps to go the race was back together and teams were starting to get organised. I clipped away with an Endura rider and a rider from the Node 4 team with three to go but it wasn't to be.”
On the final lap English said Endura put its full team on the front.
”I managed to barge my way in behind Russ Downing, and kept myself out of the wind up until the sprint. I nearly came down with 500m to go when one of the Metaltek riders smashed into my front wheel but after a bit of off roading I managed to jump back up to take 6th place.”
English will not be the only Irish rider racing in the Tour of Taiwan, with David McCann (RTS Carbon Racing Team) also lining out. McCann is a former GC winner of the race, having taken the first stage in 2010 and held the leader’s jersey all the way to the finish for a fine win in the UCI 2.2 event.
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