Conn McDunphy has taken some big wins this year, including something of an epic one in Romania last week. He says he is now hoping for more success as he embarks on his next UCI-ranked stage race with US-based Continental squad Team Skyline.
The 27-year-old former Irish elite TT champion - who has overcome major crash injuries in his career - told stickybottle he was delighted with his stage win at Tour of Szeklerland (2.2) last week, after emerging best in a game of watts and wits on the final stage.
He saw off the challenge of, among others, former World Tour rider Riccardo Zoidl (Team Felt Felbermayr). A prolific winner who previous rode for Trek, the Austrian had joined the Irishman up the road late on the 171km hilly stage to Miercurea Ciuc.
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"On first stage I was fourth after I absolutely fluffed up the final," McDunphy said of his first breakaway ride of the race. "I went with five hundred metres to go and I didn't get a gap."
However, he got himself in the same position again the next day - last Friday - and this time converted the chance into a win, just as he did on stage 2 of Rás Tailteann back in May and on the final stage of Tour de Beauce (2.2) in Canada in June.
"It was a medium mountain stage and after about 30 or 40ks of attacking there was a six-man break," McDunphy said of initially missing what would prove to be the winning move.
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"My team mate, Adam Lewis, was in it and it got about a minute. It was lashing rain and I figured the really strong Conti teams in the race wouldn't notice if I got a cross to the break. So I attacked and I rode really hard and got across."
Once he joined that move, McDunphy set about driving the pace, but said his team mate was instrumental in keeping the momentum going; American Lewis especially strong on the climbs.
"With about 25 kilometers to go one of the Astana guys came over to us and the breakaway split," he said of Italian Alessandro Romele (Astana Qazaqstan Development Team) bridging from the peloton. "So it came down to me and the Astana guy and then Riccardo Zoidl came across.
"When I saw Zoidl with us i said to myself 'this will go far' because everybody knows who he is. And it was then 10, 15 and 25 seconds… that was really the maximum gap we had for about the last 20ks.
"Coming into the final I played it cool, for once. The Italian opened the sprint. I was feeling good. I could feel Zoidl on my shoulder but then when I opened up I couldn't feel him anymore. I managed to get past the Italian guy, with 15 or 20 metres to go, and I managed to pull off the win.
"The team is now raising the Tour of Romania a big five days ahead so hopefully we can keep the ball rolling," McDunphy added of Turul Romaniei (2.2), which gets underway today with a 167km stage from Deva to Alba Iulia.
