The master of the National Road Championships - now with an incredible nine elite titles in his palmares - Ryan Mullen said he was delighted to become Irish TT champion again this evening in Dungannon, Co Tyrone.
The Bora-hansgrohe rider - who won silver in the TT at the Worlds when an U23 - went into the 31km title race, on rolly terrain, as favourite alongside Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost).
In a very honest appraisal of how he had felt pre-race, Mullen said he was concerned about Healy given his form this year, to the extent he genuinely doubted if he could beat him this time around. But in a race where the impetus was initially with Mullen, before swaying back to Healy for a time, the new champion said he was honoured his effort had proven good enough to win.
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"I came in really nervous," Mullen said, "Everyone knows how well Ben Healy's been going this year. I'll be honest, I didn't think I could beat him.
"I don't do a great deal of TT work anymore, I focus most of my training on lead-out and on being a bit more punchy. But I was motivated and I gave it what I had on the day and it was enough."
Though Mullen started quicker than Healy, last year's champion then pulled back time to the second split on the course. While the two-man battle was then a very close one, Mullen had the better staying power and pulled away to win.
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He said afterwards he was glad he did not know Healy had closed up on him as he was suffering in the second half of the race.
"I probably would have cracked hard if I knew I was ahead and then almost behind," he laughed. "I had a plan for pacing in my head and it actually fell apart and I just kind of hung on. The first 20 minutes were great and I was like 'I'm on'. Then the last 17 minutes sucked, it was a case of limiting the losses."
Mullen added while he had developed into a rider who is part of the sprint set-up at Bora-hansgrohe for Sam Bennett, and had drifted away from his TT roots, he still loved racing against the clock and was delighted to win his sixth Irish elite TT title.
"I grew up doing TTs," he said. "Even though I've taken my eye off the ball a little bit in the last number of years, I still love them, I'm passionate about them. And it's a huge honour to wear this jersey."
And what of the chances of doing the road and TT double, something he has done twice before?
"This was the controllable one, the road race could be a bit more of a lottery from time to time," he said of Sunday's men's road race. "But I'll just do what I can. I've got a team mate, which is nice. We'll see who's feeling better on the day.
"Sam's obviously a faster finisher than I am so if we're both there (in contention at the finish)... I've got my jersey, it would ne nice if he could get one and then we'd both return to the peloton in a few weeks and get back to work with our jerseys."
