Race Day No.8: An Post Gorey 3-day, Stage 1

Hello everyone, finished stage 1 of the "An Post" Gorey 3-day today. Was up bright and early this morning to get on the road to Blessington where the Sign-on and start of the stage was. Todays stage was 101km in length with 3 KOH's (King Of the Hills). I knew the race was going to be a bit hectic. Almost straight away, on the rollout through Blessington I was cut up a few times and there was a lot of touching. When they let down the flag people started get very excited and started to attack. As soon as I got the chance I moved into the top 20 where I knew I'd be safe and if any decisive moves got away I could follow! Yet again whenever you move up someone would come around the outside and you'd be stuck in the middle. Exactly the place that you dont want to be! Soon after the start a breakaway of 6 riders got away, very suprisingly they pulled out a 2 minute gap and thats as big as it got I'm sure. This was THE decisive move for today and I missed it! But tomorrow is another day, lets hope I have good legs! The first KOH came after 45km, not having a clock on my bike to measure distance I was lucky enough to have a team-mate to tell me. Thanks John! I was in the top 5 riders going up the KOH and it split up quite a bit from what I hear. After all, it came back together but there was people going backwards all day. Also there was quite a few crashes. I didn't see them all but certainly heard them all.

The finish was pretty chaotic to say the least! In the last kilometer I had a a hard time trying to move up, I got cut-off so much it was almost scary! With roughly 700 metres to  go there was a roundabout so I decided to take the opposite side around that and it was a good decision. I moved up by around 10 places, but I was too close to the front with a long enough way still to go! I opened up the sprint early and with around 100 metres to go got passed by the Manx-Man Tom Mazzonne. After him and few others passed me I sat up to conserve some energy!

Overall, a good day for me. Didn't loose any time apart from the 6 riders @ 45secs. Not one of my best blog updates but I think thats all I can add for now. Bring on tomorrow!

Stay Tuned!

Eoin