I won the bunch sprint ... and finished 84th

Matty is back with his blog on stage two of the An Post Ras...

While the boys of the Giro were taking their rest day today, the men of the Ras were back on the saddle for another round with the road. For us county riders Monday should have been a day we headed back to work, yet here we are with a week off, living the dream of big time stage racing. Some people use a week off and head to Majorca for some time on the beach, we were using the first day of our holiday's to ride 100 fast unforgiving miles, flat out, from Longford to Nenagh.

It was the longest stage of this years Ras and because it was flat I was expecting a high average speed. At sign on it was quite chilly and cold with some very light drizzle -- another perk to Longford over Majorca -- and as a result a lot of the guys were adjusting the pressure of their tires to match the conditions. On the roll out we were once again greeted by large crowds of support. School kids out wearing their green An Post Ras tops with green flags and cheering us off. The foreign teams must have been loving the Irishness of it all. But if there was any illusions that we'd be sitting back and enjoying the applause and the beautiful countryside, then they went out the window the minute the flag went down and the pace went up.

I made a big effort to stay near the front today -- a day in which I wanted to maintain good contact but without overdoing myself ahead of the hills tomorrow. I think you lose most of your energy concentrating on keeping near the front than from the actual riding itself. On one occasion I slipped towards the back and you could feel the difference immediately: When the pace went up, everyone was lined out back there and you could only hope that the elastic wouldn't snap in front of you leaving you twisting in the wind and desperately seeking a way back to the rear of the new bunch.

Around the 80 kilometre mark I'd already gone through both my bottles and so went back to the team car for more. Playing the roll of good domestique, I told the boys I'd get them some too. I waited for a few of the pro's to go back and then I went. I figured that if they wern't at the front doing the damage, then this was as good a time as any.

I was wrong.



I was the first with my bottle in the air so my car was the first called forward but it takes a while for them to get from 30th in the cavalcade, up to the back of the bunch. It got lined out a couple of times while I was waiting and I kind of thought I should maybe forget it, but suddenly the car appeared and I dropped back to pick up four bottles.

The hardest part of the day for me and almost the most embarrassing was trying to get back onto the line at the back of the bunch. There were about twenty guys in a line waiting to get bottles so I murdered myself to get back on terms with them and then had to ride up through them to get into the peloton. Still, the boys got their bottles and we started to feed. Darren's homemade rice cakes went down a treat ... really nice.

Unfortunately another five clicks down the road was the first major crash of the Ras. We were doing about 30 mph when a guy just in front of my Down Chain Reaction team-mate, Conor Hanna, hit a pothole. Guys all around us came down but me and Conor managed to avoid it. Someone rode into the back of me and hit the deck but when I checked the bike it was fine. All around me, the sound of snapping carbon -- like that of bank notes being shredded -- was a horrible one for any cyclist. One man had to abandon, a few others were reduced to their reserve bikes.

For the last 30 kilometres I was never far from the front. I knew there was groups up the road but in the midst of my bottle retrieval and crash avoidance, I had no idea how many.

As we approached the finish it seemed a good few were interested in a sprint so I thought I'd give it a go so long as it didn't become too hairy. 200 metres out I went for it and to my surprise won the gallop. I had hoped that the groups ahead only numbered in the twenties so that I might achieve myself a top thirty finish but it turned out there was about 80 up the road in large and small groups. I didn't think a flat stage would break up so much but this has been one fast race and nobody is hanging back.

I was pleased with the result in the sprint and we only lost 4 minutes and 9 seconds to the days winner, Shane Archbold. You know you've made it to some degree or another in cycling when your name appears on a results sheet on the left hand sidebar of the Cycling News website. And there it is ... The Ras, in all its glory, located just a handful of events down the list, just behind the Giro d'Italia and the Tour of California with me in 133rd position overall a mere 22 minutes and 5 seconds behind the yellow jersey of Peter Hawkins.

Our hotel for the night was really nice and our room overlooked the River Shannon. It was clear that some people actually came here to relax, whereas we had come to suffer. Still, I got a massage which helped, a dinner which helped more, and after a short walk I hit the sack ready to do it all over again tomorrow. Actually, tomorrow it gets harder for we hit the first proper hill of this Ras, a second category climb after just 13 kilometres ... it's going to be tight.