Roger Aiken (Louth Charter Prague) on the front of the group in Kerry. His aggression has made him arguably the man of the race so far (Photo: Brendan Slattery)
By Gerard Cromwell
With four days gone in the An Post Rás, Louth’s Roger Aiken has been in two major breakaways and is leading county rider just 46 seconds behind race leader Marcin Bialoblocki in 10th place overall. He also managed to finish ninth on yesterday’s first real mountain stage.
Not bad for his third race of the season.
“I did the John Beggs Memorial and the Tour of Ulster so I don’t really have that distance in my legs,” said Aiken of his 100km breakaway with Sean Downey (An Post) and Node4 Giordana's British pro Dan Barry on stage three was reeled in with 15km to go.
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“I came in with fresh legs,” he says.
“You can’t be over raced for this. You can’t be over tired and I’m just not that fussed to travel around the country to race any more. I can go as hard in training, but you miss a bit of speed from the big bunch.”
“After about 100km I just don’t seem to have it in my legs. Up until that I’m not too bad. I’ve had three hard days of jumping about a lot and haven’t really got much out of it so hopefully I’ll have an easy day or two now.”
Rather than having an easy day though Aiken was active again yesterday on stage four, infiltrating the first 23 man move that went clear around Farranfore and then fighting his way into the chase group on the descent of the Healy Pass to finish ninth on the stage and be awarded the best county rider jersey in Glengariff.
“It was a tough stage with a lot of racing going on,” said Aiken of his day out front.
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“I went across to the big 23 man group on the main road. Conor Murphy started it on his own, and then maybe eight went across and I jumped out of the bunch up to the eight. It sort of all came back together on Moll’s Gap. I was surprised when I saw the yellow jersey coming because we weren’t hanging about.”
Aiken was one of the only riders from the front group to hang onto the next wave of attacks and came home 28 seconds down with most of the overall contenders.
“I just managed to catch the chase group on the descent of the Healy Pass. They dropped me over the top of the climb but then I went for it on the descent and managed to get back up to them and I’m happy enough. I’m a part timer. I’m on a week’s holiday.”
“These boys do it for a living, or do it full time. So it’s nice to be up racing with them. It’s good racing. I’m just enjoying it. It’s nice to have a jersey, it’s a reward for all the hard riding and aggressive riding but it sort of means nothing unless you have it at the end.”
Aiken arrived on the podium wearing combats and casual sweater, having already been into the nearby lake with former triathlete and teammate Bryan McCrystal for a quick dip after the stage.
“I did it just to cool the legs down. It’s good. Bryan McCrystal says ‘come on let’s get in here’,” he laughed.
“I think he was going to go for a swim like, but I talked him out of it.”
The affable Banbridge man’s aims for the rest of the week are simple.
“I just want to keep it going now,” he says.
“With Bialoblocki in yellow it’s pretty controlled. There’s a lot of hard days to come. Saturday’s stage is hard. Hopefully the legs keep coming around every day and they don’t start to go downhill.”
