After a big win on the Junior Tour of Ireland, where he took off from the bunch and had the legs to take it home, Limerick's Michael Collins is eyeing more progress this year, when he steps up to the U23 category.
That victory on the Junior Tour, winning stage 3 solo into Kilfenora with an impressive late attack, was followed by another solo win, and overall victory, at the Charleville Two Day.
He also spent plenty of time racing abroad with the E Tarrant & Sons LTD Skoda Munster Team. He took in no fewer than five European stage races, three of them UCI-ranked, and a series of one day events; all experience he hopes will stand him in good stead for the year to come.
"My coach, Thomas Fallon, was really driving me on," Collins told stickybottle of stepping up a notch in 2024. "He was constantly looking in; if I was tired, moving to keep me fresh the whole time in the build up to the big races."
Advertisement
Asked about his Junior Tour win - on a dream day for the Newcastle West CC teenager - Collins looked back on it still slightly in disbelief at how his late aggression paid off.
"I couldn't believe it," he said. "I attacked and kept the head down and couldn't be the finish line was there. I kinda attacked, thinking the big boys would surely try to bridge across or something.
"But then I looked back and I had a big gap and so I just gave it the full go the whole way to the finish," he said of winning a race stacked with very strong Irish and international riders.
And the quality of the win, putting such a good field to the sword, clearly had an impact on him.
"Even going into races that I did abroad after that, I was thinking I could be there with them," he said. "Racing in Ireland, it's one thing to be up there but to compete (abroad) is another level."
Last year Collins rode the three-stage Penn Ar Bed - Pays d'Iroise (2.1) in France in April and a week later lined out in Spain at the two-day Gipuzkoa Klasika (2.1).
Related News
He was back in Europe, and back in the Munster colours, for BESTRONICS Acht van Bladel (2.1) in the Netherlands in June, over four stages. And after the Junior Tour in July he rode five one-day events in Belgium and Holland, taking 5th in Beveren, a national event in Belgium, in his first week abroad.
There followed the five-stage SD Sealants Junior Tour of Wales before rounding out his travels in September at the three-day Vuelta a la Subbética; nine months after starting the year with bronze in the junior race at the National Cyclocross Championships.
Collins said when he went to Spain at the start of the year, he felt he needed more experience in the bunch. But by the time he went to the Netherlands in June, he felt better able to handle himself, and felt stronger, putting in an aggressive ride.
"We got a full train, the whole team of us, on the front," he said. "To get to the front on those narrow roads was a great experience. The Munster team racing brings you on big team. Getting used to the bunches was the hardest thing, after that it's the legs."
This year Collins has been unveiled as part of the new Irish U23 Velo Performance RT squad. He knows his approach to racing will be tempered a little by the upcoming Leaving Cert, but will still get stuck into plenty of racing.
Already, the Limerick rider has enjoyed his second outing in an Irish jersey last month when he gained selection for the U23 national team for the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Dublin. He had ridden the event for Ireland the previous year as part of the junior line-up.
He said the difference between the junior and U23 race was "massive", though he has four years in the category ahead of him to develop.
"When you see the boys on the start line that are competing for podiums at the WorldTour, it's unreal," he said. "It's nice to be with them, to be able to compete," he said of the recent Dublin race, when he was still aged 17 years.
"It was full-on the whole race. It just started at full gas and kept going," he said, adding hearing the Irish fans shouting encouragement "would really drive you on".
For the year ahead he takes a sensible approach saying the first task will be to steady himself in the U23 ranks at home and abroad before hopefully "getting in breakaways, get up the road and get seen".
