Minutes after pulling out of the men's road race at the UCI World Road Championships in Glasgow, Irish rider Rory Townsend was sitting in a bar with his family ordering dinner. Less than 20 minutes earlier he was leading the breakaway through huge noisy crowds around the city's streets. But then two mishaps - punctuated by an awful change by neutral service - ended his chances.
He told stickybottle the sudden swing in circumstances, from a career high to such a low point, was very difficult to process mentally in that moment. That crash down to earth endured the following day when he could "barely get out bed".
It is was a difficult one of the 28-year-old, who was riding the Worlds for Ireland during what is his first season in the paid ranks, with Pro Continental team Bolton Equities Black Spoke. On the one hand he had made the Worlds breakaway and experienced sights and sounds - up front riding through a city packed with screaming fans - that he says he'll remember for the rest of his life.
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On the other, he had an amazing chance at a big result - "far better than my abilities as a bike rider would ordinarily allow" - as one of his breakaway companions finished in the top 10 and almost all of them were top 25 on the day. But for Townsend, the chance of his career came on a day when he said his legs were simply not capable of doing what they usually do. And then came a puncture and "piss poor" wheel change, before almost hitting a crashed Matteo Trentin (Italy) completely finished him off.
There's a lot to cover with Townsend about his Worlds. Firstly, what was it like leading the World Championships through such a large and appreciative crowd, and with so many Irish fans by the roadside?
"It was pretty epic, it was similar in a way to Leuven," he said of also riding in the breakaway at the Worlds two years ago. "Obviously when you go to somewhere like Belgium, it really is the home of cycling. So I feel like those two days will stick in my mind more than most in my career. It was pretty special, even the sound was mad. When we went up that Montrose Street climb for the first time, it was like hitting a wall of noise; you kind of got taken aback a little bit by the (scale of the) event.
"We were only going up there for a short while, maybe 20 seconds or something. But the range of emotions you go through in that small window... Everything comes into your head.. 'how am I actually here?' And 'who are all these people who are watching?' And then you're trying to spot people or picking out the flag... It was pretty special."
Townsend said while the Worlds was a home race for the Great Britain team, many of their fans seemed to have brought Welsh and Scottish flags, a factor that served only to highlight the large number of Irish flags by the roadside. That was especially so on Montrose St, which for him was the peak experience of the race.
"In that particular moment, I was really just taking in (the atmosphere)," he said. "My head was moving left to right, just trying to take in as much of the atmosphere as I could. The next day was such a come down. You go from such a peak of experience like that to a massive drop off. I could barely get out of bed the next day."
And even before the morning after the day before, Townsend said the first hour after he stopped racing was a bitter pill to swallow.
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"I went to get some food with my family just afterwards and it was such a weird sensation of sitting there in a bar watching a race that 20 minutes ago you were in," he said. "I couldn't get my head around that... It was kind of difficult, I was pretty quiet at dinner."
His problems started with the puncture on the circuits in Glasgow, though that mishap began a chain of events which put him firmly out the back, despite his best efforts to overcome that first setback. "After I had the puncture, the change was terrible," he said. "We had over a minute lead when I punctured and by the time I got the wheel off the neutral service, which was literally just behind me, I was already out the back of the peloton.
"Then I was getting back on, I got up to like the third car in the convoy. I was just about to get back onto the bunch and then I turned out to Montrose Street again and it was just after Trentin had crashed. I came around the corner and I swung around to avoid that and somehow I dropped my chain..."
While he tried to get going again on the bike his chain was too wrapped up into his frame to keep moving. That forced him to stop, costing him a lot more time. And when he got going again he was a very long way behind the bunch.
However, he said while the race was an amazing experience, it was bitter sweet even before his problems as he found himself in the breakaway - on a day he felt being up the road was a huge advantage - with very poor legs. Before reaching the circuit, when the race was stopped for 40-50 minutes due to a fossil fuel protest, Townsend said that long stoppage played into his hands. He had the chance to use the loo while stopped and felt much better after getting going again.
"That was basically where the race started because in the breakaway prior to that, we were just rolling around barely doing anything," he said of the re-start. "From that point onwards it was business; there was no talking, no messing, everybody was fully committed at that stage."
But ultimately he said his final race before the Worlds was much harder than he expected. It effectively put him into a hole of fatigue that was too deep to fully climb out of in the week before the race in Glasgow.
"I did a really big training block before the Czech Tour, which was the week before the Worlds," he explained. "So I went in to Czech Tour pretty fatigued and I thought I would be able to get through that race and then taper into Worlds. But the Czech Tour was pretty intense. It was a really hard race and I just put myself beyond the place that a week off can bring you back to.
"And in the Worlds, from the outset, my legs were just painful, with each pedal revolution I was just saying 'God, this is grim'. It was a shame because I knew being in that breakaway would give guys a good chance and, as it turned out, that was the case. And on my best day I feel like I actually would have gotten a result out of that race; getting a result far better than my abilities as a bike rider would not ordinarily allow me to get. So it was disappointing to go there not feeling 100 per cent."
Ultimately, he said it was a frustrating day, one of massive ups and downs, but he believed leading the Worlds through Glasgow, and in Leuven two years ago, "are days that will really stay with me, more than others in my career".
