Ryan Sherlock (pictured here leading, yesterday) is still within a minute of the leader with two stages remaining (Photo: Stevie McKenna)
Ryan Sherlock (Iverk Produce-Carrick Wheelers) has said the past couple of stages in the An Post Ras have been the hardest racing he has ever experienced, and he believes even the strongest men in the race have been “shattered” by the intensity of the stage-long attacking.
The former MTB rider put in a very good late effort in the closing kilometres on today’s sixth stage into Killybegs to try and grab second place. However, he was swamped 150 metres from the line by the select group of 30 riders just behind him.
With two stages remaining he is 16th on GC, just 59 seconds down on leader Nicolas Baldo (Atlas Jakroo).
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“There’s never a procession in the Ras,” he said at the suggestion that the race for the GC may be all but over.
“Tomorrow is going to be another hard day. It’s on some twisty roads, it might be breezy. It’s going to be hard for everyone, including the yellow jersey and his team. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it split to pieces again tomorrow.”
Of his performance so far?
“Well, I’ve been feeling good; the legs are good. But I don’t have any significant result, which is what I am looking for. So we’ll see if that can still happen.”
Sherlock told stickybottle that he has tried to look after himself as best he can and then try to take some chances at significant points. He believes as a home-based rider that is the only way to ride a race like the Ras which features dozens of riders in UCI Continental teams.
He was “8th or 9th” over Mamore Gap, a performance he was happy with.
“There was the lone leader and then four guys up the road ahead of us. And then Connor (McConvey) seemed to get distanced from those four, so he came back to us. That made a small group; me, Connor, Peter Hawkins, Mark Dowling were there and the green jersey (Marcin Bialoblocki of NODE4 Giordana) and one of his team mates.”
“It was only with around 2.5km to go that we were caught by a group from behind; there was about ten of them; McCann and Armstrong were there. It was a pity we didn’t stay clear of them because we would have all been top ten on the stage and improved our GC position.”
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“The legs were good and I think I did all I could. It would have been nice to have been in the early breakaway and have had a bit of a head start up Mamore.”
On today’s sixth stage into Killybegs, Sherlock said it was very clear from early in the stage that no meaningful groups were going to get away.
“Groups were just getting a few seconds and being brought back. A lot of teams were riding; the yellow jersey’s team, the Czech guys, the French, the An Posts; basically the very strong teams were riding.”
He said while most observers were expecting the fireworks on today’s stage to come on the first category ascent of Glengesh, it was very hard up the second category climb just before it.
“I was in the front group on that when it split and then later up Glengesh it was Connor (McConvey) and Bagdonas who were pushing it. It split a lot there and I was in the top ten going over the top. But lots of others got back to us later and that made about 30 up front.”
Sherlock said it was “the hottest I have ever been on a bike in Ireland; people were talking about it being 38 degrees up Glengesh”.
“Coming in the road there was lots of attacking and lots of line outs and people were still getting dropped. When I looked around with around 10km to 15km to go, I’ve never seen so many people in a group who were so shattered coming to the end of a race.”
He attacked with 3km to go and was joined by McConvey and a team mate of the yellow jersey, who had already taken flight himself for the stage win. They were soon caught.
Having studied the race route and ridden it as preparation, he knew there was a hairpin bend with 1.5km to go and jumped hard into it, opening a gap.
“It was then just a case of going into full TT mode to try and get second place. But with around 150metres to go the group swamped me, it was very frustrating.”
He finished 14th on the stage and is now 16th on GC at 59 seconds. He is also second in the county rider category, just seven seconds behind Adam Armstrong (Eurocycles), who was third today.
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