While Rás Tailteann was reworked for its return edition – with just one UCI Continental team in the race – the battle for the county rider was real. In the first 5km of the opening stage some riders were already out the back, such was the intensity of the start. And while that first stage came down to a bunch sprint, the peloton was trimmed to 110 riders, from the 165-man start-list.
The finishing bunch was down to 32 riders on stage 2 into Castleisland. And when the race headed into Lisdoonvarna, that third stage was 172km. By the finish the largest group on the road numbered just 35 riders.
On Saturday’s stage 4, as the crosswinds and tailwinds did the damage, the average speed was 47.72km per hour for 152km into Kilbeggan - with only 10 pro races this year faster than that.
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In short, this year’s Rás may have been cut from eight stages to five, and had fewer Continental teams, but it was clearly an extremely hard edition. However, the Irish county riders – specifically those riding for local cycling clubs – still put up a challenge. Each of them, and all of their clubs, has a story to tell about getting into the Rás; how the plotting, preparations and fundraising began last winter and the excitement and nerves built for months until the biggest week of their lives finally arrived.
The local club
Luke Smith knows this story well; maybe better than most. The 23-year-old from Kingscourt in Co Cavan started his cycling career with local club Moynalty CC.
However - as it often goes in Irish cycling - when his talent became clear he then moved to team set-ups, and away from his home club. First it was into the Nicolas Roche Performance Team and then into the senior ranks with Gerard DHL before moving to Girona-based Antiga Casa Bellsolà.
Lately the former Irish junior and U23 international is back where it all began, Moynalty Cycling Club. It was just one of the many local Irish clubs that ramped up its efforts around its riders in the depths of last winter to make sure it had a team on the line when the Rás rolled out of Tallaght, Dublin, last Wednesday.
Not only did the team start the race, they all finished. And Smith was 3rd on the decisive stage 3 into Lisdoonvarna. He moved up to 7th overall that day and retained that position when the race ended in Blackrock, Co Louth, on Sunday.
Smith said while he has raced for some great teams – including the national team in Continental Europe – it was hard to beat riding his national tour with his club mates.
“I think that really made the week for us,” he said. “We had a big support crew and a DS with a lot of experience,” he said in reference to Enda Murray, a bruiser in the bunch for Navan Road Club in his day collecting wins on the domestic scene.
“Enda knows the drill and he's not afraid to tell you,” said Smith with a chuckle. “And I think that just makes the crack for us - everyone relaxed, there's no pressure, it's a club team, it's great.”
As well as Smith in the Moynalty Rás line-up, his cousin Shane Smith also rode, along with Loughlin Campion, Diarmuid O’Brien and James McEneaney. While Murray was the experienced DS, he also had a crew to call upon; a six-person support team to be precise.
Meabh Holmes was the chartered physiotherapist for the week while Andrew Kelly was mechanic. Ciarán Smith, Richard Cahill and Kieran Meegan were the support crew – “doing the feed zones, setting up at the finish area, going ahead to the hotels to get things ready, that sort of thing”.
Marion Murray and Paul Kelly looked after all of the accommodation details and also ran the club’s fundraising sportif; an event that turned sending a team to the Rás into something the whole club, and the wider community, had a hand in.
They were sponsored by McNally's Pharmacy and Kingspan Global. The two vehicles the team had at its disposal were added to by the loan of a Sprinter van by Tom Clogher; a well-known figure in Irish cycling who runs his own team. It was all supplemented, says Smith, by generous donations from club members and friends.
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“Everybody has contributed something and I think we put it up to any Irish team or any pro team on the race, we’ve had one of the best set-ups,” he said. “When you have a group almost all from the same club… you know yourself, everyone is abusing everyone for fun and there’s great crack at the dinner table.”
Smith said Murray’s no-nonsense and old school approach only served to galvanise the group, not to mention head off disaster during the week.
“A fella ran into me in the neutral zone one stage and tore the rear derailleur cable on my bike,” he explained. “I had to change onto my spare bike and only for Enda saying to me about five weeks ago ‘get that f bike ready or else’ I might have been in trouble. So the spare spare was 100 per cent and running smooth and so it didn’t hold me back at all the day I had to change.”
And despite the fact the race is no longer a UCI-ranked event, Smith said the standard was very high.
“Rás Mumhan was hard. So when you're comparing it to that, Rás Tailteann is a couple of kilometres an hour faster. And it's much harder for breakaways to get away when the bunch is travelling in the high 40s on big main roads. Then when the break does get going, you did have to work harder to get a gap. The stages were just that extra bit longer as well, going up over 170k one day.
“But the longer and harder ones would suit me better anyway. I have that bit of strength in depth and my own coach Thomas Fallon always puts in loads of hard efforts at the end of a ride; just backing up five-hour spins back-to-back.”
While Smith has ended this Rás – his first – in 7th place overall and with a 3rd place finish on the longest and most decisive stage on the race, he said there was disappointment on stage 3. He got clear in the winning breakaway of nine riders. But Daire Feeley (Cork VeloRevolution) and Adam Ward (Team Ireland) got away from them just before the penultimate climb of The Burren.
Ward and Feeley went on to 1st and 2nd that day. Crucially, they also moved up to 1st and 3rd overall; positions they held all the way to the final general classification.
Smith said coming in the road into Lisdoonvarna that day he felt he had let a chance slip. But at the finish he had already mentally rallied and he won the sprint for first – despite starting his sprint with about 500 metres to go and instantly regretting it. However, the fact he was able to win that gallop for the final place on the podium made him wonder what might have been.
He was full of credit for Feeley and Ward though, saying they took the race on. And once they got clear "the rode fierce strong".
“There was an initial disappointment during that stage, I'm not going to lie,” he said. “But once I crossed the line and got a (county rider) jersey to highlight the day… that kind of made up for it. And everybody was congratulating me. So, look, I'm a sucker for never being satisfied. So maybe I just needed to enjoy the moment because 3rd on a stage in the Rás is a good achievement. No matter what you do in cycling, everybody knows the Rás.”
His overall impressions of his debut ride in the race?
He said the goodwill and crack generated within the club environment around sending a team to the race was something that would stay with him. Aside from that, he was taken by the sheer of the scale of the race and fully understands its significance now.
“I think it's about the build-up…. You know, the weeks before with lads posting about it and their personal little blogs about their experience on the race,” he said, adding it all created nervousness, anticipation and excitement.
“And then when you're doing the race, there's bigger crowds and the kids are out from the schools cheering. There just seems to be a bit more of an atmosphere around the Rás, which is great. And everyone in Irish cycling is just delighted to see it back on the road.”
