Eugene Moriarty, far left, in the breakaway on yesterday's stage 4 of the Rás into Cahirciveen. The Kerry man said local knowledge played into his hands on a bruising queen stage with 10 categorised climbs (Photo: George Doyle)
By Brian Canty
Eugene Moriarty may be one of the elder statesmen in the An Post Rás but the Kerryman, riding for the Dublin North Team 39 Spin 11, enjoyed something of a homecoming yesterday when he made the day’s 12-man break on roads he knows so well.
That knowledge of the terrain, he said, played into his hands and after a difficult few days marred by crashes and bad weather, he finally threw the shackles off and spent much of the 183 kilometre stage out in front.
“I think you look for the opportunity every day but as you get.... more experience, you have to be a bit more economical with your efforts,” the former international explained.
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“I had a rough day the first day with the change of bikes (after a crash) and I was paying for the efforts of getting back into the group. But I had a couple of efforts on Glenquin,” he said of the cat 3 second climb of the day.
“They weren’t massive attacks, more just rolling over to the side and moving away gradually,” adding it took three of four goes to break clear yesterday.
“I could see fellas weren’t reacting as quickly as I thought they might so I put in a few digs like that and it worked. A few came with me, we got brought back and we went again. Eventually we got away, there was quite a strong group there and we managed to escape.”
The roads the break got away on were wide, with some long sweeping descents, giving rise to the belief that it would regroup. But Moriarty didn’t see it that way.
“I’m effectively on home territory here so I’d be very familiar with the roads. The climbs are very difficult but often it’s the wind that does the damage. We were pretty much in the right-hand gutter.
“The break either works or it doesn’t and it just worked out today. It would have been nicer if we had a bigger gap going through Cahirciveen, but we didn’t.”
Having picked up a prime in Killorglin, Moriarty made a trip to the podium at the finish yesterday; seen here with the voice of Irish cycling Cian Lynch (Photo: George Doyle)
Their gap reached two minutes at most, but Moriarty said they needed three to have a chance of contesting the stage.
“Obviously it was a long day with 10 categorised climbs,” he reasoned.
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“On paper it was the hardest stage of the race and we raced the whole lot. It’s always a tricky one; there were three of us there from Ireland and we were trying to figure out how strong the boys were,” he said of the foreign riders the county me were with.
“We were committed but maybe we could have gone harder earlier. But then again, we may have paid the price earlier than we did.
“I was quite comfortable with the fact that we had two minutes but I’d have liked three as we went through Cahirciveen the first time; that would’ve been a good cushion.
“ Still, it was good exposure for our team and our co sponsors Brian Connaughton, Maria Connaughton and Casso (Philip Cassidy) of Spin 11. They've put an awful lot into this and it was great to give them something today. ”
Though he rode strongly all day and shirked no turn, he could feel his legs start to buckle on the second last climb of the day; the cat 2 ascent of Cill Urlat after 157km.
“We were getting confident but I started to pay the price on that second last KOH. I was in trouble a bit there and got dropped.
“But I surprised myself; I was able to get back on after it but the gap was coming down rapidly and it went to pieces on the cat one anyway.”
He would be mopped up by the front group of about 40 behind and eventually roll home some 13 minutes down. But still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And it’s that very mantra he said more Irish should adopt.
“I think it just goes to prove what we (Irish) can do. A lot of people are saying the Rás is gone out of the reach of the guy who works and competes domestically. I think that’s rubbish.
“There are an awful lot of very capable riders in Ireland, even guys who are working full-time. It’s within reach, and what disappoints me every time I come home, it bothers me that I don’t see younger guys going out and being aggressive about it.
"The Rás is always famed for being a hard race tactically and physically, part of the reason the pros find it so hard to get a handle on it is because it’s unpredictable.
“And the more our guys step back from taking it on and going for it, obviously not every day, the more it plays into the hands of the pro teams who are used to racing a certain way.
“They have a plan and they stick to it. But if we can get our own guys to just race, not every day, it shows it can be done.”
Eugene Moriarty has lit up many a Rás stage in his day and rolled back the years on the queen stage yesterday (Photo: Stephen Kelleghan)
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