Having announced his talent last year in the junior ranks - especially winning a stage of Rás Mumhan with the Irish junior team - Niall McLoughlin has stepped up to U23-elite level with a win at the first time of asking. The 18-year-old was best in the Phoenix GP on Sunday, when he not only helped the A2 group hold off the A1s, but actually increase the advantage they started with.
Winning a race at any time of the season is a great moment. But claiming a victory on the opening weekend of the campaign, just after stepping up from the junior ranks, is a real confidence-booster.
For McLoughlin, getting his hands in the air last Sunday on the outskirts of Belfast was also confirmation that a new approach to training over the winter, under coach Bryan McKinney, has worked. At the very least, his win in the Phoenix CC promotion confirms he still has plenty of punch.
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The Westport Covey Wheelers teenager faces the dreaded Leaving Cert later this year. As such, while he would have loved to up his training through the winter and gone abroad for racing this year, the exams have to come first.
He is hopeful if he gains the university place he is looking for, he will have more freedom next year and beyond to "give it a good crack" in Europe. Before then, he is also planning to race abroad once the exams are done and dusted in June.
He said he had "no expectations" going into last Sunday's first race of the season as school commitments meant he had to scale back the type of mileage-based training he would have liked to do through the winter.
"With my coach, Bryan (McKinney) we have been working off a lot more shorter intensity - working on really high intensity stuff that I wouldn't have been working on last year," he said. "Last year I would have been working on endurance, longer miles, and doing longer range efforts. But now, with getting home from school at 7:30 (after evening study sessions), it's tough to be able to say 'OK, go out now and do 2 to 2½ hours on the bike'.
"So I just haven't had the chance over to the winter to train how'd I like, ideally. But I'm hoping with the new style of training we've been doing that it will help me pull something off. And I think it was confirmation (last Sunday) to get that win so soon. With that different type of training, you are always going be unsure how you're going to react to it. So that's nice to see I could get that win."
McLoughlin said he had been doing midweek sessions in he evenings for about 90 minutes. For the first time, he based his 2022-23 winter training off power as he only began using a power meter last March. This, he says, has allowed him to judge just how intense he was training over winter and to refine his work.
During his intervals on those evening rides, he has had very short periods of recovery in between, with those recovery minutes "ridden at about endurance power".
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"In reality, they replicate race situations far more effectively; with short bursts on the front then coming back into the wheels for a minute or two before launching off the front again," he said. "It works well for me and my riding style - that jumpy style of racing. So it’s training to my strengths and how I like to race."
The 18-year-old, who proved himself one of the very best juniors in the country last year, looks like a proper talent; a powerful rider with a very good sprint, especially at the end of hard races. He was a road and track international last year and is also a cyclocross national title winner, at U16 level three years ago.
Based on the results he secured last year - including wins Rás Mumhan, National Road Series and a silver medal in the junior national road race championships - he could have secured a place on a good European this year.
However, he was unsure about committing to traveling abroad at weekends for racing in this period between the start of the season up to his exams. And having consulted with those around him, he decided to remain at home with a view to striking out abroad later in the year.
He has his eye on returning to Kerry Group Rás Mumhan at Easter, where he really announced himself last year. In the back of his mind he says he'd love to ride Rás Tailteann. But that seems uncertain as it comes right before his exams.
"One of the stages finishes in Castlebar and that's where I go to school," he says. "So that would be a big one if I could (ride it). But I'd have to see where I am, physically, and where I am with my schooling."
Though he had no concrete plans yet for racing abroad in the summer, he believed going experiencing that higher level of European racing was required if he planned to "have a good go outside of Ireland next year".
"I think I'd definitely need to be getting away after June, for sure, to race the bigger races and hopefully show something out there," he said. Many of the big races in Ireland were crammed into that period before the end of May which was "a bit frustrating" as he would only be getting going then.
After last season was completed at home he began "putting feelers out" about finding a team in Europe. And having spoken to riders who had done it, he felt he had learned a lot about the process "which was all brand new to me".
"I'd really like to get out there and do something," he said.
