By Shane Stokes
Recently signed by the same Hagens Berman Axeon team that helped Eddie Dunbar develop into a very promising WorldTour rider, Darren Rafferty has said that reaching the same top tier of the sport is his big ambition with the squad.
“I think it’s a great team for me,” Rafferty told stickybottle. “Their program is great, the setup is great. Obviously, Eddie went through it as well.”
Dunbar was with the team for the 2016 and 2017 seasons, building his talent and results there before signing a multi-year deal with Team Sky/Ineos Grenadiers.
“It’s pretty prestigious, they get plenty of people into the WorldTour,” Rafferty continued. “So that will be the aim in a couple of years. I’ll just enjoy it as best I can. I’ll enjoy the races, get into some big races, take some hammerings and hopefully get the odd result somewhere along the year.”
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Rafferty’s signature was announced by the team on September 13th. In that announcement, team manager Axel Merckx praised his achievements and also highlighted his promise.
“Darren is a young rider that has progressed very quickly through the junior ranks,” he said. “He has great potential and showed it by finishing fourth at the European Junior Championships in the time trial.
“We’re talking about someone who wasn’t well-known a few months ago and really went for the opportunity that was presented to him. With his aggressive style of riding he is going to be a great asset to the team and I’m really excited about him joining us next year.”
Rafferty’s signing came on the back of a season where he racked up a number of strong overseas results. Racing with the Villeneuve Cycliste/Team31 JollyCycles squad, he won three stage races in three weekends, namely the two day Tour du Carmausin-Ségala, the Ronde sud Bourgogne and the Tour de la Vallée de la Trambouze.
He also took two stage wins plus second overall in the Tour Junior Causses-Aigoual-Cévennes on August 8th, and raced to a solo victory in the junior race at the prestigious GP de Plouay on August 28th.
He was fourth in the junior time trial at the European championships, and later 11th in the junior time trial at the world championships and then won the road race and TT at the National Road Championships.
Perhaps most impressive was the fact that his rich run of form came about despite a big crash earlier this year. In mid-May he hit the deck in the Hilltown GP, fracturing three ribs and a wrist and suffering bruising to his left lung.
Rafferty worked hard to recover and bounced back in breaking the junior 10 mile time trial record on July 1st. His time of 18 minutes 48 seconds is awaiting ratification by Cycling Ireland, but was a full 33 seconds better than the 19 minutes 21 seconds set by Ben Walsh in 2017.
"I was expecting very, very few results"
The 18-year-old describes himself as being ‘initially massively surprised’ by how quickly he recovered from his injuries. “I think the effort I put in from the crash was just…I was working with Stephen, my coach, as consistently as I could.
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“I was on the bike three times a day, doing short sessions at the start just because I could only stay on the bike for half an hour. Just on-off on-off on-off the bike and just trying to build as much up as I could.
“I had plenty of endurance from the winter, the first few months. And I was planning to get away to France so I was in decent shape. So I just had to sort of build back up slowly. And then whenever I get over to France in the summer, it was just racing pretty much every weekend. So I was able to get plenty of races in and build fitness from there.”
Notably, Rafferty admits that he went over to France completely unaware about what was in store for him. He hoped to ride solidly but things turned out better than that.
“I went over with no expectations. I was expecting very, very few results. And then the first week I won the first overall stage race and I was like, ‘alright, I’ll maybe not be as far off as I thought it might be.’
“So from there, it was just always trying to attack and get away solo or try and win the TTs that would help in the stage race. But yeah, it was it was good for the confidence.”
Reflecting on the year in general, he singles out his fourth place in the European championship time trial as the one which was the big standout for him.
Perhaps surprisingly, he isn’t ruing what might have been, or agonising about where he could have made up the time between his result and the bronze medal. The Dungannon rider has got a bigger overall perspective and knows the most important thing is that the ride underlines his potential.
“I was two seconds off a medal. I completely raced it to the best of my ability. Like I wasn’t disappointed being two seconds behind, it was just as best I could go. And it’s kind of showed that I was there or thereabouts. So that sort of gave me confidence for next year also.”
"A big learning curve"
His national championships showings can also provide great encouragement to him. He won the time trial by almost three minutes, and then finished one minute 53 seconds ahead of his nearest rival in the road race. It was only the fourth time in the past three decades that the junior championships double was achieved.
Those performances are, he feels, important to keep in mind, particularly as leaving the junior ranks will be a challenge.
“The results definitely give me a lot of confidence for next year. I’d like to see how I can go when I move up to under 23s, because I know it’s going to be extremely hard.
“It’s just a big learning curve. A lot of experience needs to be to be found, just moving up against riders that are at a much higher level than me.”
Still, looking at the big picture, he knows that what he has done thus far is very encouraging for his overall future. His potential is obvious and if he can keep progressing, there is every chance he can follow in Dunbar’s wheel tracks and secure a contract with a big pro team.
“The improvements each year are coming on nicely,” he acknowledges. “I just sort of took it step by step with the training and stuff, and moved up step by step. Each year I’m getting a small improvement. So if I can keep on that sort of trajectory I am happy enough.”
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