The 180km route, with unpaved sections and climbs, will test all of the Irish rider's in tomorrow's Rutland -Melton International CiCLE Classic.
Damien Shaw will line out in the epic CiCLE Classic in the UK tomorrow, Sunday, despite suffering a fractured shoulder in Nenagh last weekend.
Along with Shaw riding in the UK tomorrow is a full Team ASEA line-up including: Bryan McCrystal, Fraser Duncan, Ali Macaulay, Chris Reilly and Roger Aiken.
The Rutland -Melton International CiCLE Classic, to give it it’s full title, is 180km long and features a number of unpaved sections after the 100km marker, earning it a reputation as the UK’s answer to Paris-Roubaix.
It also includes plenty of climbing before finishing in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.
The testing course attracts a quality international field, including Continental ranked teams based in Europe.
Advertisement
Damien Shaw wins the Cycleways Cup in Navan in the early season. He now has a fractured shoulder to contend with but is hopeful it won't derail his racing (Photo: Sean Rowe)
As well as the Irish men of Team ASEA, An Post-Chainreaction have also travelled to the UK.
Irish pair Conor Dunne and Ryan Mullen will ride alongside fellow teammates Aaron Gate (New Zealand), Jordan Stannus (Australia), Alistair Slater (Great Britain) and Paulius Siskevicius (Lithuania).
Dunne has been riding well on the Continent of late and manager Kurt Bogaerts believes he can get a result tomorrow, with the team having scored 3rd place last year with Mark McNally, who has since moved on.
The Team 3M Continental squad from Belgium is also taking part, with Irish riders Connor McConvey and David Montgomery down to start.
Both are capable of being in the mix, with the skills that made Montgomery the reigning national cyclocross champion a perfect match for what is an unusual race.
Conor Dunne has been going well and he will look to get up the road tomorrow and make an impact.
Martyn Irvine and Dominic Jelfs are listed as reserves for Madison Genesis and Eddie Dunbar is listed as a reserve for NFTO Pro Cycling.
“We’re looking for hopefully a step up in the standard of racing and we’ll use that as preparation for the Rás,” Shaw said of Team ASEA’s hopes for tomorrow.
“If we can get away to a few more races in the UK and France and places like that later in the year, which I think we will; that would be great.
“The Irish racing scene is great, but it’s good to get away and get a change of scene every now and then.”
Shaw has crashed twice in recent weeks; coming down on the second last lap of the finishing circuit on the final stage at Kerry Group Rás Mumhan and also hitting the deck hard at the VisitNenagh.ie Classic last weekend.
Connor McConvey came very close to a stage win in the Tour de Normandie earlier this month and would dearly love a big result in the UK tomorrow.
Related News
And it was in Nenagh that he fractured his shoulder; a crack in the bone diagnosed the day after the race when he went for X-rays.
In the finishing straight he was in a group with Ryan Reilly of AC Bisontine.
Reilly was lining up for the sprint for the minor placings when he hit a motorbike parked at a small roundabout in the last couple of hundred metres.
The impact sent him hurtling to the ground and Shaw had nowhere to go but hit him and come off.
He said he was still very hopeful the fracture would not hold him back too much.
Bryan McCrystal leads team mate Chris Reilly in Summerhill, Co Meath, on St Patrick's Day; both ride for Team ASEA tomorrow (Photo: Stephen McMahon - Sportsfile)
“I’ve trained on it indoors but it is sore,” he said.
“I’ll just have to see how I got. Tomorrow we’ll hit the off road sections after around 100km so I guess I will find out there quick enough how much it will affect me.
“I went head over heels; over the handlebars and landed on my shoulder. I’d a few cuts and it was hard to tell what was wrong at the time.
“They did all the tests in the ambulance going to hospital after it and I had a good range of movement.
“But for safety sake I got an X-ray during the week and they found a small fracture.
“I have a bit of swelling as well and some strained muscles in my chest. So once they heal up and I think I’ll be in a better position to say how much of a problem the shoulder is going to be.
“The main thing is to not do anything now to jeopardise the weeks ahead; the Rás included.”
With a number of elite cyclocross titles in his palmares and boasting one of the best road racing engines in Ireland; Roger Aiken could do something big tomorrow (Photo: Toby Watson)
While disappointed to crash at the end of a very hard race, Shaw said last Sunday’s outing in Nenagh was a fantastic occasion.
“They make a huge effort and even bringing the race right into Nenagh creates a great atmosphere; it’s really what we need in Ireland.”
He felt tomorrow’s off road sections in the UK and the short sharp climbing in the Tour of Ulster route next weekend will both test the injury.
In Rás Mumhan Shaw came down with a number of other fallers, with the crash apparently caused by riders fighting for position a little further up the bunch.
He suffered a cut to his eye and some other bruising but remounted because Team ASEA were in contention for the team prize.
Topics
