Stephen Halpin has had a few difficult seasons with health related issues and was pleased to be on the attack on Rás stage 6 today (Photo: Adrian O'Connor - www.blackumbrellaphotography.com )
By Brian Canty
Stephen Halpin has enjoyed his best day of this year's An Post Rás by forging his way into today's breakaway on the road to Carlow and staying there for over half the stage - before eventually fading as five climbs in the closing stages sapped his energy and saw him reeled in by a hungry peloton.
The Skerries man has had a difficult number of years with illness and injury hampering his progress but he's riding well this week and more importantly, he's healthy.
"I'd have liked if it stayed away a bit longer but you have to give it a go, don't you?" he said.
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"The week is going alright," he continued.
"The opportunities to get up the road have been few because of the speed, but other than that I'm happy enough and healthy and feeling decent enough. I'm struggling on the climbs a bit but quite comfortable on the flat so the plan today was to get stuck in and get up the road before the climb and try and get over the climb in the break. But I don't think the wind favoured us too much, it was a headwind a lot of it."
Halpin eventually sat up from the five-man escape believing staying away was not possible when the gap closed right down.
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"I like to race aggressively and it’s been quite hard the last few days to do anything because of the speed, but it's good to be up there and to get the name out there. I like to race for a result though; I don't really like to just ride to get in the break. But it was good to be up there for sure.”
"It was after about 10k when I got away, the American guy ( Jake Rytlewsk) went and I knew UK Youth were waiting for a move to go, and they were quite picky who they were letting go. So I saw it going and it was the right mix of riders, none of us were up on GC so I rode across with Olan Barrett and we all rode really well together, everyone was pulling their weight.”
"The gap got up to 2 minutes 45seconds, that was the biggest gap we got, it just kept growing and growing and then I was thinking if we got another minute at the bottom of the climbs there's a chance it might stay away.”
“We were hoping the favourites would just be watching each other but once it started to come down, it came down very easily. They were riding very hard behind and I knew if they wanted to bring us back, they would. There were four of us and into that headwind it was difficult.
"I'd rather give everything in the break than sit in the bunch. It was a great buzz going through towns, in your home race and being competitive. It's good to be in the mix again."
Barring a disaster he'll finish in his home town in north Dublin on Sunday and that's something he can't wait for.
"I am indeed looking forward to it. It's always pretty stressful the last day but all my friends and neighbours and their dogs will be out supporting it, so there's a bit of pressure to perform!"
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