Bryan McCrystal leads pro rider Dominic Jelfts before taking flight to take on the rest of the Rás in an epic David and Goliath battle (Photo: Paul Mohan - Sportsfile)
When the history of the second stage of the 2015 An Post Rás is written, the record books will show a professional rider from New Zealand called Aaron Gate and competing for An Post-Chainreaction won the day.
But without any shadow of a doubt, this race belonged to county rider Bryan McCrystal.
The former pro footballer and ex international triathlete powered up the road with four others with almost 100km remaining on the stage from Carlow to Tipperary.
He rode the others off his wheel and at one stage had six minutes on the peloton and was virtual leader on the road.
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But the real David and Goliath battle here was for stage honours.
And but for the panicked riding of Team 3M and JLT Condor, who inexplicably blinked first and took on responsibility for hunting the county man down - giving yellow jersey Francesca Reda and his Team IDEA 2010 a free ride – Louth-Asea’s McCrystal would have made it all the way.
In the end, the stage was simply 5km too long for him.
He was swept up, paving the way for a bunch sprint but slaying any doubts as to whether this race is now too hard for the county men to win big.
The peloton enters Cuffesgrange, Co Kilkenny, on the road from Carlow to Tipperary on stage 2 of the An Post Rás (Photo: Paul Mohan - Sportsfile)
How it unfolded
The day started with the usual flurry of attacks but it was not until the field had around 35km covered that the serious picture began to emerge.
UK-based Irish rider Dominic Jelfs (Madison Genesis) was the first to move clear. He was very quickly joined by Hugo Robinson (Neon Velo Cycling Team), Simon Ryan (Limerick Mego RT) and Bryan McCrystal (Louth Team Asea).
They got down to business immediately and with none of those men featuring in the upper section of the overall standings after the splits of stage 1 yesterday, the bigger teams in the race appeared content to let them up the road.
With 38km covered the first time checks indicated the four leaders had pulled out a lead of 14 seconds, but it was clearly growing.
While the breeze was blowing and was once again a crosswind, it wasn’t as strong as yesterday, meaning the breakaway should have been confident of making good progress.
However, Robinson sat up and went back to the bunch, leaving the three Irish riders driving away off the front.
With 50km completed and 87km remaining to the stage end in Tipperary, the gap had grown to 50 seconds; so while it was increasing, it was proving hard for the leaders to really pull clear and the field behind clearly had not fallen asleep.
But over the next 10km, with the field happy to let a three man group containing now overall threat up the road, the gap had shot out to 2:25 and it was very much ‘game on’.
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Of the three leaders, McCrystal was best yesterday and so best placed overall; he came home in 23rd place some 4:47 down on the stage winner and with time bonuses he found himself 5:10 down overall.
Fraser Duncan of Team ASEA and Conor Dunne of An Post-Chainreaction at the head of affairs just after the field left Carlow on stage 2 of today's An Post Rás (Photo: Paul Mohan - Sportsfile)
Jelfs started the day 44th overall, 6:50 back while Ryan, who has won some great races this year, was 101st; some 12:51 down.
Just coming up to the 64km marker and the breakaway crested the cat 3 climb at Nine Mile House, with Jelfs leading over the top from McCrystal and Ryan. Further back the road, Rob Partridge of NFTO Pro Cycling was 4th.
With 80kms covered the breakaway was six minutes clear and McCrystal was now yellow jersey on the road and with two hours of racing completed the average speed was just under 42km per hour; a very fast clip considering the headwind the riders were now facing.
And when the breakaway reached the 50km to go marker, the JLT Condor squad from the UK and Team 3M from Belgium started to ride on the front of the bunch, in an apparent desire to protect the positions of the combined three men they had in the breakaway yesterday.
The next time check showed 40 seconds had come off the gap between breakaway and peloton and Ryan had cracked and was slipped back, leaving just McCrystal and Jelfs up front.
Going through Cahir at 103km completed, it was then the turn of Jelfs to crack; if the big Dundalk man McCrystal was going to win this stage, he was on his own with just under 35km remaining to the finish line in Tipperary.
And with exactly 30km remaining, he had 4:20 on the bunch. He put the head down and was fully committed and with 14km remaining he still had 3:05 on the field in what was turning into a nail-biting David and Goliath contest.
But with just 5km remaining he was caught and the fairy tale was over. It left the bunch to line out and flying into the finish where Kiwi Aaron Gate (An Post-Chainreaction) took the stage after Erick Rowsell of Madison Genesis tried a last gasp solo attack that was snuffed out.
Updated: Stage 1 winner and today's yellow jersey Francesco Reda (Team Idea 2010 ASD) has been disqualified from the race.
Brief stage result, provisional
1 Aaron Gate (An Post Chain Reaction) 3 hours 29 mins 26 secs
2 Alex Frame (NEW ZEALAND National Team)
3 Davide Vigano (Team IDEA 2010 ASD)
4 Lukas Postlberger (Tirol Cycling Team)
5 Liam Holohan (Madison Genesis)
6 Jaap de Man (Team 3M) all same time
General Classification, provisional
1 Lukas Postlberger (Tirol Cycling Team) 7 hours 1 min 54 secs
2 Martyn Irvine (Madison Genesis) at 58 secs
3 Robert Partridge (NFTO) at 1 min 1 sec
4 Michael Cuming (JLT Condor) at 1 min 3 secs
5 Jaap de Man (Team 3M) at 1 min 4 secs
County rider: Ian Richardson (UCD)
Points: Postleberger
Young rider: De Man
Mountains: Patridge
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