Matthew Walls (Lucan CRC) has enjoyed a very strong outing in his first international race of the year, where he was on the attack for about 100km at Troféu José Poeira (1.14) in Portugal, including leading the race solo for about 20km.
The Irish rider won the C2 Lucan GP in Dunsany, Co Meath, last month and has also really impressed riding against the C1s, making the breakaways, in recent weeks.
At the weekend he competed in Portugal, alongside Toby Sweetman (VC Glendale) after the Irish U23 riders competing for Velo Performance this year helped put the two Irish juniors in touch with some Portuguese teams.
"I thought this would be a good time to go over, just before Rás Mumhan, and get a good test in the legs against the juniors," Walls told stickybottle, adding the plan only came together last week.
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Walls and Sweetman both rode the race in their Irish club jerseys though they were taken under the wing of one of the local teams.
Walls finished 6th in the race on Sunday; 130km, in rain and wind, with 1,700m of elevation gain. The heavens opened on the start line and the riders were lashed by heavy showers through the day.
He finished 2:01 down on race winner José Miguel Barbosa Salgueiro (Picusa Academy), who was in the breakaway with Walls after the Irish rider's aggression effectively kicked off the winning move.
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After a subdued start, Walls floated around the bunch as a small breakaway group got clear. With little chasing in the bunch, their gap quickly growing to about two minutes. Walls then attacked and rode across to the riders up front, with his firepower adding to the effort and increasing the gap well over the three-minute marker.
However, some of the teams became organised in the chase and the gap to Walls and the others eventually dipped below 50 seconds as a headwind section aided the bunch.
However, Walls decided not to wait around to be caught and attacked the small lead group, going clear solo, and persisting solo for about the next 30 minutes as the rain intensified.
Though he managed to pulled his advantage out to about 1:30, the gap then began to fall as he hit some lumpier terrain. However, a small chase group then formed behind him, with Walls doing his best to remain ahead of those chasers to the top of the next large climb, which he succeeded in doing.
And with about 40km to go he found himself in a larger breakaway, doing his best to manage his effort having spent many of his resources and also having been ill last week.
With about 10-15km to go, the attacks began on a steep climb, with the front group splitting but Walls fighting to stay in contention on the incline and down the descent, where several of the breakaway men crashed.
He was joined by one chasers from behind, and when they reached a short sharp cobbled climb just before the finish Walls crashed. He managed to get back on the bike and rode as hard as he could to the finish for 6th place.
