Sherlock on the front of a chase group at the National Champs in June (Photo: Gillian Peelo)
By Brian Canty
He can take solace in the fact that two performances by him at the Suir Valley Three-Day last weekend were the standout shows of strength of the race, but Ryan Sherlock won’t take much comfort in losing the yellow jersey on the final day of a stage race.
On Saturday’s opening stage the Monaghan man jumped clear of the peloton on the lower slopes of The Vee and gradually chipped away the margin to the break and forged his way into it with 20km to go before winning a truly epic stage from Sean Lacey.
A day later he bettered it with a stunning time of three minutes and 20 seconds for the hill-climb time trial; a full 13 seconds better that KOH leader Martin Mizjayski (Iverk Produce Carrick Wheelers).
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Sherlock then pulled on the yellow jersey heading into the final day of competition Monday.
But it went pear-shaped for him when he missed the split on the final day and lost over two minutes to eventual winner Barry Twohig, who had stolen his way into the break.
But the Cycleways rider wasn’t too downbeat about what happened.
“Well I came here with just a couple of team-mates and I’ve seen it here before - full strong teams come here with the yellow jersey and lose it on the final stage. It’s just such a hard race to control. I’m shattered tired now but that’s racing,” he offered at the finish line.
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Indeed with just two team-mates - Charlie Prendergast and Michael Lucey - it was always going to be a test to control the race and though Lucey rode himself to a standstill and Prendergast didn’t get off the front all day, it proved futile as the gap to the escape just kept widening until it was too late to do anything about it.
“A couple of guys would come through and ride on the front for a couple of seconds but it was mainly attacks coming in the road,” said Sherlock.
“There was a little group of us got off the front on the climb of Aherlow but then they were just attacking me. The race was still three minutes up the road so I don’t know what they were thinking. There were a couple of teams threw away the race. I lost the race but a lot of other guys did too. They just didn’t really want to ride for the race.”
Though he didn’t go into specifics, it’s clear that Dan Morrissey-Speedy Spokes and the Isle of Man teams missed their chances of winning by watching Sherlock.
“At least they got two stages,” said Sherlock of the Dan Morrissey-Speedy spokes team.
“No matter what, Paidi was going to get that stage two, he’s just such a strong sprinter. And the final stage was his as well,. I don’t think there’s anyone in the race who would have caught him.”
“In the peloton, the Isle of Man tried to play the card that they had guys up the road but the two guys up the road were down on GC and they weren’t strong sprinters so they weren’t going to get a stage. No one was really riding.”
With the end of the year in sight, Sherlock turns his attention to the Continent.
“I’m heading to Belgium to do some racing and then I’ll come back for a couple of weeks and back off racing then. I’d love to get a stagiaire with An Post-Sean Kelly. That would be great. I was talking with Sean (Kelly) yesterday so I would like to ride with those guys and finish out the season. It’s the strongest I’ve ever been now and I’m feeling really good so I’m going to race hard in the next six weeks and see how it goes.”
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