Rás last man's two broken bikes, wrong turn and 120km solo
On the opening stage of the An Post Rás, one county man endured the stuff of nightmares...
By Brian Canty
The opening day of the An Post Rás is always a nerve-shredder. Fresh legs meet huge motivation to produce a mega-fast afternoon.
Unfortunately, the pent-up excitement of the riders often results in much squeezing, pushing and shoving; all in good spirits of course.
Crashes happen in every race and the An Post Rás is no different. But multiple bike failures and subsequent wrong turns by shelled riders are rare.
Killarney CC rider Marcus Treacy had a day that the words 'bad luck' don’t come close to describing.
Sitting comfortably(ish) in the bunch on today’s stage from Dublin to Longford, Treacy would suffer a double puncture after he bunny-hopped the back wheel or another rider already on the deck.
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He jumped left, over a kerb and landed hard, forcing both wheels of his Canyon to blow out.
Initially there was no major panic as he had a spare bike on the team car. And it was quickly on the scene.
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But more drama followed after he got two new wheels when his groupset - the uber-cool Di2 - malfunctioned and meant he couldn’t change gear.
That forced Treacy onto bike number two, his trusted winter stead; a Dolan.
Alas, that wasn’t working very well either as the derailleur literally disintegrated. It meant he couldn’t shift properly so he was forced into another bike change.
That bike belonged to his teammate Richard Maes, who spent a couple of hours in a chase group up the road.
Treacy's misery was compounded further when his cleats weren’t compatible with the pedals on Maes' bike.
That fact sent their team mechanic frantically searching for a pedal wrench to whip pedals off his spare and put them onto bike number three.
He eventually got going in true Rás style; chasing a completely lost cause as the bunch was long gone.
Took a wrong turn
And with all the cars also up the road Treacy was alone; out the back and trying to navigate his way to Longford.
His day was to get even worse when he took a wrong turn. He rode in the wrong direction for two kilometres.
When he turned around and realised his mistake he saw the Broom Wagon go by and thought his race was over.
He was eventually put on the right road and he made it to Longford; a full 32 minutes down and the last man across the line.
We will say a prayer he has more luck tomorrow.
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