Cycling Reports |
Dunboyne 3-Day,By Dave WalshStage 1, 70 miles, June 2nd, 2001
To set the scene - during the week that the Rás was on, I had been off the bike for 6 days or so with a dreadfully painful infection. On the Friday before Dunboyne, I was still on inhumanely strong antibiotics, and feeling pretty ropey. Still, taking the view that it was better to ride the race and fail to finish, rather than sit around at home wishing I was in it, by Saturday morning I was shovelling down forkfuls of pasta. En route to Dunboyne, I took a detour to Lisa's house, a friend of mine who's qualified in therapeutic massage, in the hope that she could work some magic on my aching limbs. My legs felt much better afterwards - I felt like I was able to ride a bike. By the time I got to Dunboyne, I was running late, and had to drive around in circles before getting parking... ran in, got my number (142) rode around a bit, and gave my spare wheels to Graham, who was doing back-up for the Ravens team. We had a large compliment in the race, eleven riders. I hadn't clicked into any kind of focus before the 70-mile race started, we were ripping along into the wind on Summerhill road, and my legs still felt like wood. I wasn't as high up in the bunch as I would have liked, but wasn't feeling bouncy enough to go shooting up, or off the front until we were well into the first lap of four, an undulating loop around Summerhill and Rathmoylan, when I managed to get up into the line-outs for a brief period. For much of the weekend, when the roads were good, they were good, and when they were bad they were treacherous - there was a patch on a bend just the Dunboyne side of Summerhill that was lethal, and I was surprised that there was no crashes on the way out, such was the pace of the bunch through the broken surface. The pace was fast, and a large group fell of the front early on, only to come back mid-race... and it wasn't long before another large group split off, containing three Ravens men, Anto Moran, Karl Brannigan and Terry McManus. I wasn't breathing well at all, and I think I didn't keep myself in check... my stomach tensed and about halfway through the race, I started getting stomach cramps. Still, I sat in, fairly well up the bunch, and decided to get today over me, and start thinking about tomorrow. There was a bunch with three teammates a minute or so up the road, so there wasn't much to worry about. Belting through Rathmoylan for the last time, someone made a desperate football inquiry to the roadside spectators; 'what's the score?'. On the way back to Dunboyne the speed went up and up and up... attacks were going off the whole way to the Batterstown turnoff, but as we swept through the S-bend the sprint buildup began in earnest. No-one was racing for placings at this stage, with 20 or so riders up the road, but the rush seems to have been mixture of damage limitation and untethered enthusiasm. I sat in, followed wheels, and was in the top ten as we came into the final bend. I whipped round a few people, and crossed the line second in the bunch, behind Greg Connolly (Dublin Skip). I ambled back into the village, gasping, still feeling absolutely dire, but high on endorphins from the gallop. Ahead of us, a three-man group had escape, containing the stage winner and overall race leader Sean Bracken. Anto Moran (Ravens) had been first of the chasers across the line and was now our main man on GC. Grand stuff. |
At
the time of writing this, I'm having problems remembering what happened on each
lap, even each day of the Dunboyne 3-Day, perhaps because we finished in the
same place on all three days, as well racing on circuits for two of the stages.
Maybe the memories will seep back as I write.