Conor Dunne – in green, centre of photo – getting his pro career underway on Sunday at the GP de Marseille, which by his own account sounded like an eye-opener.
Fresh - well maybe not fresh, but he survived anyway - from his first pro race with An Post-Chainreaction in France on Sunday against some of the biggest teams in the world, Conor Dunne is relieved to have gotten reacquainted with the flat out efforts that maketh a bike rider’s career.
It wasn’t aboard the packed Ryanair flight from Stansted to Marseille that it truly felt like the racing season was beginning.
Nor was it whilst I pinned my numbers on in a small motel room on the outskirts of France’s second city.
It wasn’t even when we signed on for GP de Marseille the next morning, in front of a French crowd who laughed at the ‘grand garcon de deux metres’ as he was too tall for the roof of the sign-on stage.
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No, the season sunk in somewhere 80km away from Marseille, in the pissing rain with the peloton in one long line in front of me.
My legs were two sacks of lactic acid and my lungs felt like they were about to burst as the road continued to rise. I then glimpsed a sign at the side of the road; ‘10km GPM’ (‘10km to the top of the mountain’). Yep, that’s when the season started for me.
So I now have one race under the belt in 2014 and it feels great to have got the first one out of the way. I managed to finish GP de Marseille in the gruppetto of about 20-30 guys after a pretty hard day in the saddle and a lot of climbing mixed with some pretty petrifying descents.
It was a bit surreal to be racing against some guys who I have grown up watching and if I’m honest, idolizing. This soon wore off as the hammer went down up front and I was quickly cursing them.
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The early break went pretty much straight away and then the bunch rode piano for a good 20km letting the guys out front get a six minute advantage.
Then, in an instant, the big teams hit the front, the pace went sky high and it was time to hang onto your hats.
Although my legs probably weren’t that happy at this point it felt fantastic to be back in a bunch again, flying through the middle of god knows where.
The climb of the snow lined Col de Petit Galibier at 50km to go was where the damage was done as we climbed for about 12km.
This came after my morale-boosting realisation that we still had 10km to go to the top of the previous ascent
I also had my first experience of the An Post camper van, of which I am now a big fan.
On the other hand, I don’t think camper vans were designed for 6ft 8 boys or for an entire 8 man cycling team to use as their pre-race toilet stop. The least said about that the better.
Next up for me is Etoile de Besseges, a five-day stage race which begins tomorrow, Wednesday, near Nimes.
The legs aren’t feeling too bad today and I’m looking forward to getting back into the action.
Until then, does anyone know what to do in a French motel room to pass the time? I have been searching for an answer to this for a while now…
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