Conn McDunphy (Team Skyline) has told stickybottle he faced a mentally challenging time in the early part of the season, including crashing while going very well at Rás Tailteann, and he was delighted to put that behind him with a win in Canada yesterday.
He rode well over half the 164km stage 2 at Tour de Beauce (2.2) in the breakaway, and did the final 60km alone, to win solo by over a minute.
That meant his team was taking its second win in two days and now McDunphy also holds the climbers' jersey in the race after his efforts to create "chaos" yesterday.
"We had the jersey with Sean so we didn't really want to ride at the front because it's a long week," said Dunphy of his team mate, Sean Christian winning Wednesday's opening stage from a breakaway that gained four minutes on the main field.
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McDunphy pointed out today's stage, with its uphill finish, and even the final stage criterium, which he won last year, were very hard. As a result, he added, "we wanted to keep it a bit chaotic" yesterday. So rather than taking the tradition approach to defending the yellow jersey, McDunphy fired himself up the road to take pressure off his team.
He went clear some 70km into the 164km stage with five riders, with two more then getting across. However, many of those he was with appeared reluctant to commit because he was in the ground.
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And when the leader's advantage grew to two minutes, but went no further, McDunphy attacked solo with 60km to go. At one point he was five minutes up on the bunch, making him yellow jersey on the road. And though that gap was down to 1:17 by the finish, he ran out a comfortable winner, moving up to 10th overall.
"With about 61-62k to go, I jumped them and I just put the head down," McDunphy said of making his move. "I kinda knew I had decent legs. The gap went out, but in the last 10k I was flagging badly.
"I had cramp when I was sitting down but I was still able to ride on a hard climb," he said of the 1.3km cat 3 climb at Frampton, averaging seven per cent and crested just 9.5km from the finish.
"I had to do that climb all out of the saddle but I was still able to ride it pretty hard. And then it was 10km downhill to the line and I was very happy I managed to win."
McDunphy said the victory came after a period that was "pretty hard mentally" as he went into Rás Tailteann going very well, only to crash. And while he feels he has had good legs, the season had not "clicked" for him until yesterday.
He said his team and support network - including his girlfriend and his father, and others - had kept his spirits up and he looked forward to what the rest of the week held in store.
