The Tour of Ireland has come to an end, but it certainly went out with a show for the crowd and an interesting race for us.  Going into the final stage, we were sitting comfortably in yellow with me holding a 1:50 second advantage over the next placed rider from another team.  So, although it wasn’t over, it would take quite the epic downfall for me to lose the jersey.  Other competitions were much tighter however, with Robin in the points jersey, but with no lead whatsoever, as 2^nd place was tied with 51 points.  He was also in 2^nd, but only by about 20 seconds.  To make things even closer, Anders was only 20 seconds out of 3^rd place, and defending the KOM jersey by a mere 8 points.  Basically what it all boiled down to is us versus two guys, Joe Kelly from the Isle of Man (sitting in 3^rd and tied for points with Robin), and Felix English, the prologue winner and 2^nd in the KOM classification.  Robin needed to beat Kelly to stay in points, Anders needed to keep English within sight over the one climb on the day, which happened to be the finish, and if he could put 20 seconds into Kelly then that was perfect.

So that’s how it looked on paper, but of course things never play out nicely in the real world.  The day started with some fierce attacks from the lads from the Isle of Man, two of whom were in the top 10 overall.  I worked on covering these guys, and anyone else within 3 minutes of the yellow jersey, and what I didn’t have an instant answer for, Yannick would haul back for me.  I must admit, I was not feeling nearly as strong as the previous days, and it seemed the others had recharged their batteries far better over night, but with the help of a very strong team, we kept the threats for yellow in check.  We did let a group go up the road though, containing nobody on my radar, and Austin slipped in just to be represented.  This was great, it would help neutralize the attacks and would let our guys rest, unless the gap got huge.  That was when Anders told me that Felix English was in it though, and that changed things.  He wasn’t a threat on GC, but if he won the day, he would take big points for the finishing climb, and the rest would be taken up by the rest of the break, meaning Anders would lose the jersey.  That meant the whole team went to the front and got the blue (okay, it was actually yellow, blue, green and polka dot) train rolling.  We managed to bring the gap down, but it was not coming down quickly.  We also got a fright when we heard that we had to stop for a train.  My original thought was that the break had gone through, and in Europe the ruling is that a break is allowed to continue if it makes it through, even if the pack doesn’t.  This could have easily cost us the win, but thankfully the break was stopped as well.  After basically a peleton wide nature break when we were forced to stop, they let the break go back to its original gap, and set us out to chase again.  At this point though, time was running out, and we were all losing horse power.  Basically we decided to forget about the climber’s jersey, so Robin and I could save our legs to defend the two other jerseys we had over the final, 2kms of hellish climbing.  Coming into the final 10km, it was like the calm before the storm, with a very quiet, nervous feel rushing through the pack.  Although I had a big lead, I was nervous something would go wrong, and hoping that Robin had the legs to stay with our friend from the Isle of Man.  As the climb started, Joe Kelly’s teammate went to the front and drove it, quickly whittling the pack down to little more than 5 or 6 riders.  Then it was Kelly himself who jumped, and I think I was the only one who could follow him.  He hammered for all he was worth, and was going a bit too deep for me.  I knew if I cracked things wouldn’t end well, so I let him slip away with about a kilometre to go, knowing if I ride just a bit easier, the risk of cracking goes away, and I could afford to give him a bit of time.  In the end, a small group caught up to me, but Kelly only managed to take 12 seconds.  I had won the Tour!  Unfortunately, Robin wasn’t in the group that finished with me, and he lost the points jersey, but did manage to stay in 2^nd overall.

We finished the stage in exhaustion, absolutely spent from our week long effort.  It was not the way we had hoped the day would go, but maybe we got a little greedy trying to win everything, and it cost us in the end.  It’s easy to be disappointed in losing two competitions, but after a while we realized what a great race we had as a team, all week.  We won 4 of 6 stages, team GC, 1^st and 2^nd on individual GC, and were in the running for the points and KOM competition.  After thinking about it that way, everyone was much happier!  Personally, I have learned so much about racing as a race leader this week, and am trying to learn from the many mistakes I made daily.  Thankfully I had the team that I needed to bail me out when I did make these mistakes, and now I can take those lessons into the future.

So next up for me is a bit of rest and preparation in Belgium prior to the World Championships in Italy.  Following that, I’m off to Singapore for the Youth Olympic Games, and then back to the US to finish up the season at the Green Mountain Stage Race.  Crazy how fast things are winding down, but still lots of excitement to come!

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