Paidi O’Brien takes Ras Luimni from Carrick’s evergreen Martin O’Loughlin

Paidi O’Brien takes the A1/A2 win in Caherconlish (Photo: www.kieranclancy.ie)

Paidi O’Brien has continued his Dan Morrissey-Speedy Spokes team’s winning start to the year, taking victory in the Ras Luimni in Limerick today by soloing to the finish after attacking the late breakaway in the closing kilometres.

The former An Post-Sean Kelly rider pulled clear with his team mate Sean Lacey and Martin O’Loughlin (Iverk Carrick Wheelers) going into the last lap of four laps.

The trio worked together to hold off the remains the day’s main escape just behind them and with around 2km to go O’Brien attacked the others and pulled out a gap that he managed to maintain to the finish in Caherconlish.

“It was certainly great to win and it’s always important to get that win when you have some good shape,” O’Brien told stickybottle.

“The good weather over the winter probably helped me a good bit. Last year there was lots of ice and snow and I wouldn’t be great for doing hours on the rollers. So I’m probably in better shape compared to this time last year.”

He said a breakaway of around five riders went clear on the first lap of the A1/A2 race and that coming towards the end of that opening lap he managed to bridge across in a group of four that included eventual second-placed O’Loughlin.

With Lacey up the road in the first break, Dan Morrissey-Speedy Spokes already had a numerical advantage. When the two groups merged going out onto the second lap, they worked well from that point for two laps as a number of groups split from the peloton behind in an effort to get across.

Going onto the last lap, the breakaway men began to think of victory and the attacking started.

It was O’Loughlin, Lacey and O’Brien who pulled clear, working to keep the chasers at a distance for most of the final lap before O’Brien emerged out front alone in the tense final miles.

He took the win, with O’Loughlin leading in Lacey not far behind.

It was O’Brien’s team’s third win in as many weekends, with Sean Lacey having taken the Lacey Cup in Tralee a fortnight ago and Tim Barry emerging best in the Cycling Pursuits Cup in Broadford last weekend.

O’Brien said morale was now high in the camp.

“We seem to gel well as a team and we’re riding well as a unit. The individual riders would be able to win races themselves anyway. But when you ride as a team that helps. I think Irish cycling is going that way now; you could see Dunboyne were the first to really get organised a good few years back and in the past few years we’ve all seen how Eurocycles are also a good team unit.”

The Corkman, who is now in his second season on the domestic scene since returning from the Continent, said he was very happy to be home. Currently studying business at Cork Institute of Technology, he said not riding full-time any more meant the sport was a little different for him now.

“Before, it was your job; you had to go to a race. Now it’s more of a past time or a hobby and if I don’t want to go to race on a certain day then I’m not going to go.”

The likelihood of that happening is slim, with O’Brien saying he is looking forward to doing as well as he can in the upcoming Des Hanlon in Carlow, Ras Mumhan and the An Post Ras.

In the A3 race today, Comeragh’s Tom Fanning took a tight sprint in the breakaway from Blarney’s Michael O’Mahoney. The A4 race went to Barry Twohig of Blarney who took a solo win with just seconds to spare on the charging bunch behind him.

We’ll have a full set of photos later.