On becoming a "man of the Ras"

That was without doubt the hardest 8 days i've ever spent on my bike as I have just clocked up around 30 hours of racing miles whilst participating in the FBD Ras, an international stage race around Ireland.

I formed part of a surrey league team which was also represented by riders Chris McNamara (Mc), Wouter Sybrandy, Chris Moores and Dave Sinclair. We also had pro like backup from Managers Keith and Richard, Masseuse Nikki and Mechanic Ray.

Some highlights for me were on stage 2 making the break with the stage winner Rapha's Dean Downing, and finishing 12th. This was even more rewarding as I'd initially missed a large split mid race and had got myself across to a chase group up a climb and then nailed it on the front of this group down a descent in order to close a minute gap to the front split. Apparently Wouter and Mc had also tried been trying to bridge across to my group on the climb. Had I known about I would have eased off to allow them get across, but when I looked back at the top of the climb I couldn't see anyone within 300m behind our group, and so had to make the decision to go hard or risk not seeing the race again. Think Wouter particularly was a bit annoyed to miss that split and sounds like he pretty much rode all day on the front of the second pack.

The real highlight of the race for me had to come on the next stage, stage 3 as both me and Mc got ourselves ahead of the peleton to finish in a chase group of 14 behind a breakaway duo of Newton and McCann. By riding a hard pace up the final climb we even split off from the rest of the group and got a small gap up the steep section whilst this was closed down over the top, showed that we could both match these pros on the hard climbs. That day I finished 6th, and was placed 4th on GC with Mc in 13th,

On the next day one of the lowlights for me was a near crash on a fast ad slippery wet descent after nailing myself to get across a large split. This really shook me up, lost me 30 seconds from the main group and also as I wrenched the bike to stay upright pulled a glut muscle.

Towards the end of the week the increasing pain in my right bottom (from the pulled muscle) meant I was increasingly riding using my left side, and every pedal revolution was painful. Wouter and Mc obviously noticed commenting that my riding was even more lop sided than normal.

As always Plowman riders seem to be shouting at me and giving me aggro. This was despite me helping their rider Simon Richardson who was wearing the yellow jersey get home on the horrible headwind finish section of the 7th stage, after we had both lost out. Some smart arse comments from PCA rider Alex Higham on the morning of the last stage (and i'm sure he could tell I was not in a good mood after losing out on the overall position I had been riding for) and then he wonders why I might not move over to let him through in the run in to the sprint, just because he shouts at me to move out of his way and let him through.

Ever increasing pain and a dropping GC position ensured I was in a pretty solemn mood towards the end of the week, and was glad to see the end of the race. However while it lasted it was fun to see my race number up on the stem of some of the UKs top pro riders such as Dan Lloyd from the An Post team.