Monica Marconi

The Ras An Laois in Rathdown always falls on Easter Sunday. I remember being approached by Seamus Kavanagh from Ossory CC perhaps three years ago: he was looking at putting on a separate race for the women in addition to an A4 race over the Easter holiday which, on the racing calendar, had normally been the preserve of stage races like the Gorey-Three Day and Ras Munhan.

The Ras AN Laois is actually a testing wee circuit: 2 laps of a 28 km rolling course along nice country roads, on a surface that is pretty hard to ride and typically with pretty adverse weather conditions. Unlike the first couple of years, the finish line this year was about 6 km out of town, which made the race a 62 km affair.

At sign-on I was rather dismayed to see only 6 women had turned up and the prospect of riding with the A4s was pretty daunting. As it turned out though, we had 19 women at the start line and the commaissaire was happy for us to have our own race.

With 4 riders, Orla Hendron, Yvonne, Orla Walsh and myself, Orwell had managed a fair showing compared to other teams. Fran Meehan set a fairly brisk pace right from the gun and with the first incline of the day pretty quickly in sight we all knew to keep our wits about ourselves.


Yvonne Doran and Orla Walsh before the race (photograph with thanks to Terry Smeaton)

The bunch, I noted, was well behaved and - I hope this won't break the spell - it feels that compared to previous years, when races had a somewhat hairy feeling about them, we have become more comfortable and less jittery about keeping in very close proximity to each other. To sum it up, there were no crashes to report in our race.

Given that the pace was being kept pretty high thanks to Fran, Sinnead Oakes, now unattached, Aisling from Lakeside wheelers and a few other riders and because of the cross-wind, it was going to take a power rider to properly break away and this just didn't happen.


The women's peloton with Yvonne Doran, Orla Walsh and, on the far right, Monica (photograph with thanks to Terry Smeaton)

There were a few attempts but these were all rather ill-fated. I joined Roisin Kennedy from Adamstown on her first attack of the day: into a head-wind and in no time we were visited by a wild storm. It felt my face was being riddled by a thousand needles so i crouched onto the handlebar and kept my pedals turning; we had a gap but it was too early to go although we probably did manage to shake a few riders off the bunch.

More attacks followed but none of them really stuck although the bunch was pretty reduced in numbers by the time we rode through the town centre for the second time. Roisin launched another attempt at breaking away in the last lap which i followed together with old Ras na mBan team mate Sinnead but we were quickly caught by the reduced bunch.

The weather changed for the better and the sun shone warmly as we hit the old finish line in town for the third time over: we started to get ready for the finish. Just before the 2km mark there was an incline and that was the place to make the final move: Emma Walsh from Dungarvan CC sailed past us all with young Autumn Collins in her wake: she had been very alert to any Dungarvan moves pretty much all the way during the race and they came home first and second.

I found the legs to accelerate up the same incline past the reduced bunch and really tried to hammer it home in the hope for a third position...It felt like a very long last kilometer; in fact, the finish line was slightly brought forward due to an earlier crash in the men's race. At least two marshals and a commissionaire were furiously waving flags, one of which, surely must have been checkered, but in the mayhem my recollection of where it was is rather hazy.

I do recall Sinnead very quickly appearing to my left and passing me to claim 4th position whilst I go swamped and eventually came home 7th. Orla Hendron was not far behind me and looked very comfortable in her first road race of the season. Yvonne followed behind in a gruppetto and was pretty pleased with her second race.


Monica picking up seventh place (photograph with thanks to Terry Smeaton)

Sean Higgins

The Ras an Laois A4 race starting in Rathdowney looks relatively flat on Strava with only 120m of climbing over 62km. It was 2 laps with an extra few km to the finishing straight. However, there are a number of short climbs which have apparently proved decisive in previous years and can really sap the strength from your legs.

After joining Orwell last year I competed in the club league which gave me a great introduction to racing and motivated me to try open racing this year. I met with Stephen O Shea in October and got a few pointers about how to look less like a footballer and more like a cyclist. i.e. lose weight, stop rocking on the bike like I expected to get a shoulder and to point my knees forwards rather than at right angles.

With a plan from Stephen I had spent all winter building towards the Des Hanlon last week but I got sick a few days before and wasn't able to race so I had two weeks off the bike before Sunday. My legs felt fresh due to the break but I was worried about not having trained for 2 weeks.

I arrived down about an hour and half before the race, checked out the finish and went to sign on. There were 8 from Scott- Orwell racing with 4 in the ladies race (Orla Hendron, Monica Marconi (7th), Yvonne Doran and Orla Walsh, 2 in A3 - Daragh Boyd and Shane Toman and Robert Dolan and I in the A4. It was great to chat with everyone before the race to settle the nerves.

I spent the majority of the next hour trying to decide what to wear after hearing of the horrors down at the Ras Mumhan the day before. However, after a brief warm up, trusting the rain would stay away and mainly not wanting to re-pin my numbers I decided to go with no gilet, rain cape, base layer or gloves.


Daragh Boyd in the A3 race (photograph with thanks to Terry Smeaton)

Just before the race began, while waiting for the roll out, the rain started to fall. This would continue for the majority of the next 2 hours. The race started with a neutralised roll out through the town. Once the roll out finished there were a number of attacks straight away which had the front of the bunch lined out but none of these lasted very long.

I had read that a group had broken away last year on a climb halfway through the first lap so I stayed as close to the front as possible to follow any moves. A few went off the front and I followed wheels to catch back on for a few km but with the terrible conditions and strong winds I thought it was unlikely anyone would stay away. I then just sat in the bunch for the next 30 km. The break moved up the road and out of sight and I started to question my decision. I wondered was it just laziness that helped me decide to stay put hidden from the wind. The break of 3 or 4 managed to stay away for about 20 mins (the longest I’ve seen a break stay in a4) which was impressive as the majority of that was either facing into a strong head wind or cross winds.

I finished the first lap feeling fresh but fairly miserable due to the consistent rain and poor clothing choices. The second lap started at a ferocious pace and I got caught out and ended up way back the bunch. Luckily there were no major gaps so I spent the next few km moving up every chance I got.

There was a prime on the second lap but I decided not to contest it as I knew I wanted to be on the front a couple of kms later to be in a good position when we would turn onto the final 5km stretch. Once we turned into the head wind for the second lap the pace fell way back with no one willing to do any work on the front. This meant the peloton became very bunched and I fell back again. With about 1km before the final turn I decided to put in an effort in the hope of kicking things off to stretch out the bunch. This seemed to work and I sat in about 10 riders back for the next few km.

As we were going over the final climb, 2 km from finish, I felt I was well positioned and concentrated on holding my position. The pace in the last 2 km was averaging over 50kmph so I picked a wheel of rider who I thought looked strong and followed him until the 1km mark where I knew there was a slight cross wind. I moved up on the left hoping to get into top 5 before the 200 m mark where I had decided earlier I would begin my sprint. Due to the high pace and wide open road there was a plenty of space to move up sheltered from the wind and I slotted in behind the 2nd rider from Carlow. However, as we were approaching the finish I realised I was slightly boxed in and it would be very hard to get around 3 or more people to sprint on the outside. Spotting a slight gap on the inside between the footpath and yellow lines I decided to go for it. I went as hard as I could up the inside and no one managed to follow my wheel. With only the finish line ahead 150m seemed a lot further than I expected but I managed to keep the gap and cross the line in first.


Higgins takes victory (photograph with thanks to Terry Smeaton)

Robert finished his first open race just behind the sprint in the top 20 so hopefully he will be on the podium in the next few weeks.