It's a title few riders can lay claim to, but every racer in Ireland covets. Tom Blennerhassett was part of the Orwell team for the An Post Rás 2015, and he takes us through his week below in a gripping read! 

 

Well the brain is at last beginning to recover from what was one of the best (and toughest) weeks of my life – the body is still in tatters but I guess it has earned the right to be a bit sluggish for while.

First, I'd like to just to say again how thankful we all are for the massive support we got from the club. All the way through, from the first inklings of the club putting in a team again this year right up to finally getting to Skerries many months later, we were backed up by so many of you. So, to the committee, the membership, all of you who came to the fundraiser, those who gave up their time, their resources, their money and gear to make all this happen, all the people who came out to give us a cheer and a wave, a text-message, THANK YOU. It's genuinely appreciated. I think Brian Mc outlined well just how much was involved in putting the show on the road and the massive impact that had on all of us. We quite literally couldn't have done it without you.

I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone reading this that cycling is hard. It's tiring and painful and risky. It requires huge investment of time and energy. There's a lot that go wrong. Of course these are also some of the things that make it worth doing. And that is why the support we received means so very much. Racing would still be hard but it could now at least be simple, and that's because we were so well looked after, physically, logistically, and mentally. Pat, Fionn, Mary and Aishling looked after us perfectly. Knowing that we were in safe hands, that everything was being taken care of and all we had to do was eat, sleep and turn the pedals, that's a really great feeling and I think is probably the difference between making through the race and not. The thought that there would be smiles and sandwiches and a massage at the end of the day really can be the difference between holding that wheel or going out the back.

Second, I'd like to try to give a little flavour of what the Rás was actually like. This is just my own perspective on the race – we all had very different experiences on and off the road so I won't presume to speak for the other lads.

It had been an ambition of mine to do the Rás since about 2011. I hesitate to even use the word ambition because the idea of me actually racing at that level seemed so outlandish, absurd even, and seriously expressing the idea that it could be possible was close to fantasy. I'm an extremely ordinary racer. So it was a somewhat secret ambition: an “it would be amazing” ambition, not an “it'll definitely happen” kind of ambition.

So when the prospect of Orwell putting a team together for 2012 came up I was among those with their hands in the air, admittedly with the quiet understanding that I probably wouldn't make the grade but it would nonetheless be good for me and at least it would give those who would make it someone to mercilessly half-wheel during the long winter miles (cough DW cough). My achilles heel (which is both literal and figurative) made sure that I did indeed fail to make the cut but I did do the Rás – in the car, with wheels on my lap and grease under my fingernails. But I was there, in support of Aidan, Brian, Pat, Dan and Odhrán. To see the race up close, close enough to smell the embro, that was a great experience and one that made my ambition a little less speculative.

This process repeated itself in 2013 and my ambition solidified a little more. Orwell added to its tally of Men-of-the-Rás, and I once again mechanic'd.

And then, in 2014 there was no Orwell Rás team. It seemed that maybe everyone who really wanted to do a Rás has already done it and that was enough for them, thank you very much. We had several Men-of-the-Rás with, maybe, nothing left to prove. I began to fear that I had missed my window, that perhaps Orwell was once again entering a fallow period before producing another crop for the Rás scythe, and that crop could be years away, too late for me.

But I shouldn't have underestimated the club. Sure enough, when feelers went out at the end of the year about Rás 2015 hands were once again in the air, and mine was among them, this time less tentatively. With the guidance of Aidan Hammond and some of the guys who'd been there before the winter training began in earnest.

But there's a lot more to getting to the start line than simply training and racing. We could take care of that and meanwhile cogs turning – Pat O'Brien (MotR 2013) came on board as manager and as the months passed all the details began to come together. Brian Mc's post above gives you an idea of just how much involved in that and how many of you played a vital part in it. It became clear that this was actually going to happen, and you only need to look at the number of clubs who didn't get to the start line to see how much of an achievement that really is.

I had my own wobble along the way. Rás Mumhain, never an easy race, really knocked the stuffing out of me and doubts began to gnaw. I kept them to myself, probably for too long, and then I confessed them to the team. And they did something for which I will be forever grateful: they told me to shut up and stop being an idiot... that I did have it in me to continue, that I did have the legs to make it though the Rás and that I'd regret it badly if I chucked it in. Trust the process. And they were absolutely right. Tough love, but love nonetheless, and they saved me from a terrible mistake. Cheers lads!

That belief in fact was even enough to keep the fire lit when a crash, three weeks out from the big R, meant I was flat on my back taking painkillers when I should have been honing that last bit of form. At that stage it had begun to feel like the Rás wasn't something that I was about to do, but rather was something that was about to happen to me so I should just brace myself and deal with it.

Let's fast forward a bit...

Dunboyne - Carlow

Got there in plenty of time and the team and crew assembled. Brian Mc, Neal, Dick, Michael Butler from Nenagh, and me. All togged out. The atmosphere was great, giddily positive and it was immediately clear that with Mary and Aishling we were literally in great hands. Fionn was busily fitting frame numbers and checking tyre pressures, and Pat was making sure that nothing was overlooked and that we were all ready to rock. The car was being loaded up, the mammoth van from ShipMyTriBike was swallowing all our gear with ease. But I spent nearly the entire morning waiting for the experience to feel real. Even as we were pinning on numbers and going up on the podium to be cheered on by the many smiling Orwells there, I felt there was something otherworldly about the whole experience, dreamlike, and that some deus ex machina would swoop in and somehow prevent the inevitable. But there I was, coveted yellow cap and all. So we assembled at the start line inflatable, did our ceremonial lap of Dunboyne (remarkably civilized compared to the pub car-park brawl that is the neutralised section of most races I've done) and then the flag dropped.

I was in the Rás. Racing. In the actual Rás. For real. It felt bizarre and elating, there was a sense of relief in finally having made it, and a realisation that it was very very important not to feck it up now. Everyone was nervous, everyone was fighting for space and position, and everyone was hoping to be lucky as well as strong. The race was on. 154Km to Carlow. To my surprise, it wasn't as hard as I'd feared – really how could it have been? – but it was fast. I vividly remember coming to a near dead stop in Sallins as we had to jink over the very narrow canal bridge and there were the Orwell posse, cheering us on, and that was much needed as that stall was followed by my first taste of a proper Rás line-out. Going from nestled in the bunch to dangling from a single wheel was a timely reminder not to count chickens. Suddenly things had begun to feel very real indeed and at last the unthinking racing-brain kicked in. A desperate few minutes followed but I survived the surges and made it to Carlow in a large respectable bunch. Couple that with being met at the finish by our magnificent soigneurs, complete with recovery drinks, camp chairs and assurances of our brilliance, well, what more could I ask?

1/8. So far so good.

Carlow - Tipperary

This was a stage that I'll remember as first lulling me into a false sense of security before firmly reminding me of my severe limitations as a rider. The first 130km were fine with long periods of piano and with only 20km left to go I was beginning to think that I might again finish in the front bunch... seeing the yellow jersey stopped to get a wheel change from a team mate made me wonder if there might even be a hiatus for him to get back on... NOPE. Instead it went full-gas for the 10km into the bottom of the Cat 2 climb of Aherlow and then absolutely lashed up it. I slid, I grovelled, I gave it all I had but it wasn't enough to stay in touch with the race and I had my first experience of seeing the Rás just ride away from me. It was interminable. I had mistakenly thought that it was a Cat 3 and was beginning to think that if this was a Cat 3 then what the hell could an actual Cat 2 be like? I had cracked. Still, I was far from the only one, and once over the top we rode it in the last 10km at a frankly foolhardy pace given the standing water on the descent and once again I was greeted by Aishling and Mary and told of my greatness. A couple of sandwiches later I'd almost begun to believe them.

2/8. I'll take it.

Tipperary - Bearna

With tiredness now becoming an issue the 160km to Bearna was a bit daunting... Only two Cat 3 climbs but by now I knew that even the uncategorised lumps were to be feared. In the end I actually got over the climbs reasonably well, but again received an education in the dangers of optimism and that education came in the form of crosswinds. It began to feel like there had never been a time where I'd had more than one wheel to hide behind.

Somewhere on the descent of the Cat 3 at Killanena there was a crash, a big one, one that instantly filled the road from gutter to gutter. The were broken bodies and broken carbon everywhere but there was also the slightly undignified scramble to climb over the pile-up and get to chasing those who'd been ahead of the crash – every second spent stationary can mean a minute desperately chasing. Brian was on his feet, he'd come down but was apparently fairly unscathed, and the two of us got going again and rode. The chase group grew and the pace rose as the pro teams demonstrated the difference between us and them. By the time the catch was made and we were safely back to the bunch I was spent.

Somewhere on one of the many many roundabouts around Galway the wheel I was on pulled out into the wind and invited me to close a gap. I'd already done this a couple of times already but this time it just wasn't happening. A full sprint effort out of the saddle was not enough to get up to the next wheel and that, as they say, was that. I wouldn't mind but the guy who opened that gap was a pro... and so came to understand that there are pros and there are "pros". Some of them are trapdoor pros – you think you can lean on them, but, at a crucial moment they might just leave you swinging. Still, we found a little group and rode it in.

Every now and again it becomes impossible not to acknowledge just how much luck is involved in this game. To be caught behind a crash might appear to be bad luck, but it isn't, not compared to the guys who got caught beneath it. And to have these close calls day after day, and to know that while there is some skill in avoiding touch down, no amount of skill will ever reduce the risk to anything close to zero, well you just have to be thankful for every day you get to the finish with the same amount of skin you started with.

3/8. No one ever said it would be easy.

Bearna - Newport

This was the one with no categorised climbs... and this was the one that everyone feared. Another ~160km though Conemara and the wilds of Mayo, coast roads, bog roads, wind, rain. This was going to be a proper Rás stage.

23km directly into the a headwind was just enough to let me switch off a bit before a 90° right-hand turn threw a hand-grenade into the race. “Blown to bits” is up there with “Epic” in the overused cycling terms stakes, but that's exactly what happened – suddenly, for everyone not in the very front it was every man for himself as line-outs formed and instantly shattered in the gutter. I've never seen panic like it in a race. Wild-eyed county riders, desperately waggling elbows and screaming “echelon!” as the few who had the horsepower to do so rode across gaps to leave us to our fate. There were groups of threes and fours dotted along the road ahead, lone riders going across or coming back, cars whizzing past as the radios informed them of the carnage at the front. Your fate for the next 130km, indeed the rest of the Rás, depended on the next fifteen minutes and could be the difference between the laughing group, the broom group, or the train home. I did everything I could, and somehow, and I'm not even clear on the sequence of events myself, though luck, guts, pigheadedness, bullying, and fear I ended up in the laughing group.

This turned out to be a serious misnomer by the way. Even in this group I spend nearly the entirety of the rest of the stage grovelling in the right-hand gutter, following one wheel and praying that Brian Mc would blow his lights.

By now the eating has begun to lose its charm. For most cyclists who spend a disproportionate amount of time and mental energy agonising about calories, body fat, and the demon biscuit tin, the idea of a week during which you can eat virtually as much as you like probably seems like a gift. And it is, at first. Then, after about the fourth day the prospect of porridge, eggs, toast, and maybe some more porridge begins to feel like a chore, the energy bars and gels begin to feel a bit too sweet, and the gargantuan reloading to be done at the dinner table becomes just another job to be done, albeit done in good company. Great sandwiches though.

4/8. Don't celebrate being half way across a tightrope.

Newport – Ballina

Our first start without Dick and I almost didn't know who should pity whom. I guess I felt sorry for both of us, but for him the most. We'd both come down in the same crash three weeks before, though I'd been a bit luckier in where I landed and hadn't paid as big a toll. We'd both been swinging in the same drop-zone the day before, but I'd made it to a big group whereas he'd had to ride for his life to make the cut – a herculean effort on such a long and brutal stage. I'd seen the physical toll that had taken on him and I knew that really the fact that he'd had to do that ride and I hadn't all came down to luck, on the day and three weeks before. It's a cruel sport. There really is such a thing as survivor guilt.

Remember how yesterday we had 23km to get ready for getting our heads kicked in? Well today that would be happening after 17km.

Only when we do turn across the wind at 17km it doesn't go mental. I mean sure, we're flying through roadworks, in the rain, down hill on diesel slick winding roads, and it's pretty hairy... but the wind hasn't blown the race to b... oh, no, wait, yep, 19km in, there it goes. Rinse and repeat. Blown. To. Bits.

By now the mental fog that comes with fatigue isn't clearing in time for the next stage. Instead, it's accumulating every day, thickening, and I can feel myself becoming less able to follow simple trains of thought, slower to react to things around me. Baffled by simple conversation. The Rás Stare is making its first appearance at the dinner table. I'm a barely functional imbecile. Luckily Pat is doing the thinking for me.

5/8. To the nearest whole-number approximation, one Rás completed.

Ballina - Ballinamore

Another 160km one, but this time we've turned right, inland, the wind is mostly behind us and we're heading home. And apparently some of us are in a hurry. We hit a Cat 3 about 10km out and I know that that's too early to get dropped unless I want to have a very long day indeed. Getting over that first hill is too early to celebrate though too. The sheer speed is the shock today. 49km in the first hour and something similarly bonkers in the second, and this is in drumlin country up and down and up and down and never in a straight line. It's actually fun. A strange type of fun, I'll grant you, but absolutely hammering through a town like Ballygawley or Manorhamilton at 60kph is amazing – you can hear the Doppler effect pitch-shift the screaming school-kids as you flash past and it just feels glorious.

I didn't feel too glorious as I slid out the back of the bunch on the last Cat 2 of the day though. A couple of hours spent in 53x11 or 53x12 meant the legs had nothing to offer once the 39 was called for. Again, I was far from the only one when a barrage was called I was content enough to find a decent group to keep the pace up and ride in keeping our losses respectable.

In the evenings now the legs no longer feel like they're mine. They're totally unfamiliar lumps of wood, if wood could ache and spasm and make stairs difficult. Only the twice daily work of Aishling and Mary make these legs in any way useful to me now – working out the knots and tweaks, ensuring that while they might still be a bit sore in the morning, they will work, they will turn the pedals, they won't desert me. I don't think we could do this race without this kind of care any more than we could do it without bikes.

6/8. Beginning, cautiously, to believe.

Ballinamore - Drogheda

This was probably the most eventful day for me. The start was fast but not terribly selective so once we got over the Cat 3 at Leiter I, brimming with unwarranted confidence, decided to try my hand at going back for bottles. Feeding is permissible after 50km so when I was back there at 55km, waving my bidon manfully, so were just about every other team in the race. This meant there'd be a bit of a wait, but the race was only going tempo and there was no call for panic. It was warm, and I'd already told Neal I'd be back with sustenance and I had Brian Mc's gillet stuffed up my jersey, so I persevered, sitting last man or near enough. And then when I'd been there long enough to be thinking our car must be one the next to get called up, the road started to go up. Cat 2 at Moyer. Up to this point I had been dropped on every single Cat 2 we'd hit. Aherlow had scarred me, Altinure had done the same, and now here I was with absolutely no sliding room whatsoever as we hit Moyer.

This could be lights out. I'd be the guy who went back for bottles and was never seen again. Tragic. And probably deserved. I dug in, and I swung, and I huffed and puffed and watched the back of the bunch slowly ebb away from me. I accepted the ever so slightly patronising applause of the spectators on the final bend and saw the flags for the KOM at the top (though I know those flags are rarely at the actual top) and the first of the cars began to pass me... Comms, Car 1, Car 2, Car 3... gasping now... Car 4 goes past me and I'm at the top. Car 5. I can still see the back of the bunch and they can't have more than 30 seconds on me. Time to remove the brain and descend like a lunatic. There's no point in trying to get a draft off any of the cars, the road is too steep and winding and the line I need to take bares little resemblance to what they take. They're using their brakes and I am definitely not. All I can hope is that they see me coming and don't cut me off in the bends. The situation called for recklessness and that's what it got. It took the full length of the descent, probably about 7km, to make contact with the bunch and when I got there felt like a survivor. But I still had no bottles... characteristically, I was making something trivially easy unbelievably hard.

This wouldn't do, so I stayed at the back of the bunch and once more began waving a bidon. This time I saw the Orwell car relatively quickly but it still felt like something of a leap of faith to voluntarily detach from the safety of the bunch. It is, at a minimum, counter-intuitive. Anyway, I dropped past the comms, deposited Brian's gillet, picked up four big JOE DALY'S bidons and jumped back to the bunch. Like a boss. I slid up the right, calling “SERVICE” and saw riders happily let me slip up past the county riders, up to the portion of the bunch that's mostly pros (and “pros”) and, at last, handed McArdle a bottle and offered him a few gels. A few places back I gave Neal his and at last allowed myself to take a deep draught of my own. It had only taken about 40km and several near-death experiences but at last dehydration was no longer to be feared.

And then I punctured. 'Tis a cruel sport. I got a wheel from neutral and was back moving without too much fuss but this would test my skills and bravery on the bumpers and getting an 11sp cassette for my 10sp drive-train wasn't going to help matters. But yet again, I did eventually get back, k'chunk k'chunk gearing and all. I'd burned every single match in my box to do so but I got back. Briefly. The last uncategorised bump put me out the back door with about 15km to go and the same familiar faces were with me, finishing it out. I distinctly remember Garry McElroy beaming beneficently at me as I slid out the back for the final time. K'chunk k'chunk k'chunk.

7/8. So close I can taste it.

Drogheda – Skerries

The last stage. A formality. Processional. Right? Right?

Nope.

The niggling sore throat and sniffles I'd been doing my best to ignore for the last few days were getting a lot harder to ignore and the fatigue and soreness in the legs was only partly masked by the prospect of becoming a man of the Rás. I knew immediately that this was going to be tough. I was hanging on by my fingernails over every rise in the road and was failing to make the effort to move up on the few occasions when the pace eased – a recipe for disaster. I got caught behind a crash on the way into Dunsany and had to contribute to the chase back on, burning match after match as we rode onto the Greensheds circuit... and then, on the way our of Rathoath, just as I'd gotten back to the bunch a few big potholes dropped my chain off the outside. I was probably off the power for no more that 15 or 20 seconds and I finessed the chain back on without having to stop but I was deep in the cavalcade and deep in the red. I hadn't had sight of the broomwagon all week and wanted to keep it that way.

The next 30km or so were spent yo-yo-ing from Car 30 all the way up to An Post in Car 2 and back again as we crossed the familiar racing roads of North Co. Dublin. I was grimly determined to make it onto the Skerries circuit and knew that if I went out the back now I'd get pulled. There were others going out through the cars, and stronger guys who'd come down in that crash going back up to the bunch, chewing the bumper on the way. It was all I could do to drag myself over Cross of the Cage and, eventually, we made it to Skerries and the cars disappeared leaving the few of us still in the race but not in the bunch to ride the laps, minutes down on the front of the race but still technically in it. I can't relate the relief, the joy, the sense of achievement I felt as I went over the Black Hills for the first time. A little group of us, all county riders, all at the end of our tethers, formed a coalition and the four of us rode out the remaining distance steadily, fast, but knowing that at this point we'd leave no one behind and we'd cross the line together. As we rode though the finish for the penultimate time I could actually soak it up – it wasn't my imagination, people were shouting my name. It was truly special. Knowing that the next time around there'd be those smiling faces there to meet us and that we would (in a very small way) be heroes, legends in our own lycra – well it felt a little unreal, like that morning so long ago in Dunboyne, but better, because now we had nothing to do but enjoy it.

And so we did. We crossed that line and got the second yellow hat. I got my medal and we popped some fizz.

8/8 Everything went better than expected.

I hope that in doing the Rás and in writing this account of it I've given those outside the bubble a little insight into what it is and what it really means to riders like us.

I also hope that it means something to the club as a whole; racers, leisure-riders, juniors, masters, new members and the old guard. Orwell is a great club, we're capable of great things. Being the kind of club capable of putting a team in the Rás is only one element of that – it's a truly communal achievement that goes way beyond the riders on the start line and it's an achievement that should rank alongside our ability to run a league (or more than one), to run our Randonée, the Roche GP, to compete in just about every discipline on two wheels, and be a presence at just about every sportive, granfondo and audax.

It's a testament to our ability to produce and nurture those with a even the barest smidge of talent and sufficient desire that someone like me who didn't race until nearly 30 can, in the right environment, progress. So I hope that the fact that we did this in 2015 makes it more likely that the club will do it again in 2016, though maybe the cast may change a bit. I hope that there are riders in the club who maybe see this and use it to take a step towards their own ambitions, whether that's a Rás, the Rás na mBan, a Marmotte or the Wicklow 200. We're capable of more than we dare hope, individually and together.