Scott Bicycles Junior Tour of Ireland

Smiles all round as the team battled their way up from 29 to 26 in the cavalcade (photograph with thanks to Rachel Glendon)

The Scott Junior Tour is a 6 day international stage race for junior riders. Orwell has had many previous representatives in the race including Club Champions Brian Ahern and Conor Murnane. Brian even won the race in 1999. Current National Champion and lifelong Orwell member Nicolas Roche won in 2002. No pressure.

Stage 1: TT (6.2km)

The race started with a tough short TT. No time trial equipment was allowed, just standard road bikes. It was intimidating seeing the Americans and their massively toned, tanned legs. I had a good warm up on the rollers but slightly underestimated the time it would take to get to the start line. Arriving 30 seconds before your start time isn’t recommended but certainly gets the adrenalin flowing. After 3.5km I catch a tractor. It’s moving just too slowly to stay behind and I’m forced swing out to the opposite side of the road. As I’m level with the tractor I see the road rise up in front of me and have to accelerate again. This ruins my pacing and I can only try to hold my pace to the finish. Finishing a minute down on the stage winner gives me a sense of what’s to come for the rest of the week.

Photograph with many thanks to Tommy Heaney

Stage2: East Clare (117.8km)

This is to be one of the easier stages with (only) 866m of climbing. The CAT 2 with 30km to go looks set to be where the damage will be done. Team orders today are stay up the front and out of danger.

The neutralised section is only 2km long and gives little opportunity to move up. It’s evidently clear when the race starts as the pace immediately increases to over 55kmph as the attacks go. My legs feel terrible before realising we’ve averaged 45kmph for the first 15km.

The pace eventually settles. As we near the narrow road section I start to move up. On the stage profile there is a rise in the road, but it was uncategorised so I presume it will be okay. I move up anyway. Suddenly the road narrows dramatically and starts to climb. The pace is the same as it was on the flat but the gradient only increases. I’m really suffering now as the road kicks up then flattens repeatedly. Finally the road descends gently but only for 200m. I’m glad I moved up as I’m at the back of the bunch. The last section is a kilometre long at 9%. The rider in front drops his chain and a gap opens in front of him. I get out of the saddle and stamp on the pedals. Thankfully I’m still in the bunch before the descent, where the speed ramps up and it would be impossible to get back on. I can’t imagine what the CAT 2 will be like.

The stage is quite rolling and the pace is not too bad until the CAT 2. The Americans are on the front defending yellow. Thankfully they ride the climb at a steady, not too fast pace. It felt a lot easier than I anticipated. Towards the end of the stage I was near the back of the bunch and, out of nowhere a bad crash happens just to my right. I nearly go into the ditch on the left side of the road trying to dodge bodies and bikes. My track skills came in handy here as I avoided hitting the brakes which gave me time to get around the crash.

The crash gave me motivation to get to the front. With 2km to go I was in the perfect position. There was a left turn after a bridge and the two guys in front of me bounced off each other. I thought I was going down but thankfully they stayed upright. Annoyingly I lost about 40 places and just rolled into the finish in the middle of the bunch.

Stage 3: Lahinch (101.7km)

With the first road stage behind us we had added confidence for today’s stage. It was a fairly hilly stage with nearly 1,000m of climbing. The major challenge would be the Cliffs of Moher climb.

The pace wasn’t quite as fast at the start. A strong break went up the road and all the major teams had riders in it. I was happy to just sit in the bunch for the rest of the stage. The first KOH was no problem. However when the bunch heard the gap was over 4 minutes there was a serious increase in pace.

At this stage the lead car for the main bunch moved up, to let the team cars past to get to the break. Unfortunately because of this the bunch went straight on when we were supposed to go left. It was 5km before a car could get ahead of us.

I don’t think I’ll ever experience confusion like that in a bunch again. To see a car stop ahead of you and tell everyone to turn around was mental. We didn’t know if the race was neutralised or that we even went the wrong way.

Eventually we were stopped just before the base of the Cliffs of Moher climb. They gave the break the advantage they had before we went the wrong way. Resuming the race just before the start of a CAT 2 probably wasn’t the best idea and my legs certainly felt it. I spent the whole climb in the big ring and was slightly off the back of the bunch but caught back quickly on the descent.

The rest of the race went far faster than the first half, on constantly up and down roads. It was energy sapping, so I made sure to eat plenty. For the last 20km the average speed was well over 40kmph. Coming into the finish I tried to have a go at the sprint, even though there were 20 riders up the road. I finished 6th in the field sprint and 27th on the stage. I was very happy to be up there in such a high quality race. The stage ended up being 110km due to missing the turn. I was really looking forward to tomorrow’s stage with the legs I had.

Just after the group sprint (photograph with thanks to Tommy Heaney)

Stage 4: Wild Atlantic Way (109.9km)

This was the stage with the most amount of climbing with a total of 3 CAT 1’s and a CAT 3. It was a long transfer to the stage start but we were there with plenty of time. After some deliberation I decided to use a shallower front wheel because of the cross winds we would encounter.

I felt really good after the first CAT 1 after 20km. I was having a bit of trouble changing gears at the rear derailleur. On a descent my gears completely stopped working and I was stuck in the 19. I was completely spun out and had no option but to let the bunch go and change bikes. I was so disappointed and frustrated, since I thought I could do something on this stage.

My spare bike wasn’t perfect either. It had Shimano pedals whereas I was using Look cleats. I felt like Chris Froome riding up Ventoux on the borrowed bike. Although Froome had less than 2km to go, I had over 80km left. It was going to be a long day.

There had been a crash earlier in the stage so I rode easy until the Grupetto caught me. I soon realised the saddle was far too low so I had to stop again, raise the saddle and catch back on up Corkscrew hill (CAT 1) on a bike weighing over 10kgs and whenever I pushed hard my feet would slip off the pedals. It was an incredibly frustrating situation but I somehow managed to catch back on.

The bunch take a corner. Sean on the right. Guest rider Marcus a few riders behind. Other Orwell guest rider Dillon obscured on the left (photograph with thanks to Tommy Heaney)

The Grupetto was fine but with a long way to go I decided it was best to just sit in and survive the stage. The last KOH was the CAT 1 Castle Hill. A 1km climb with an average of 9% and pitches of up to 18%. I couldn’t get out of the saddle and really struggled up the climb but got over it.

I finished the stage 22minutes down and dropped to 69th on GC. After the stage Dillon Ryan, one of our guest riders, was sent to hospital to get a scan on his arm. We still aren’t sure exactly what the doctors told him but he started the next stage nevertheless.

Stage 5: Gallows Hill (101.3km)

I was determined to try to get up the road after the disappointment of yesterday’s stage. The stage had 5 categorised climbs. We expected to struggle on the CAT 2 with 20km to go and the infamous CAT 1 Gallows Hill hilltop finish.

Normally if you attack the bunch at over 50kmph in a Sunday race you expect to get a big gap quickly, but not here. I must have spent only 30 seconds off the front. I was up the road when there was a big crash in the bunch and 6 riders had to abandon the race.

The early CAT 3’s were a lot harder than expected but I used the more technical descents to catch back on and move to the front. Starting the climbs at the front and slowly “sliding” back in the bunch meant I avoided getting dropped.

On the CAT 2 I fought as hard as I could to stay with the leaders, but was eventually dropped. I crested the climb with a number of riders behind me. I kept pushing hard on the descent to try and catch the groups ahead. I decided to use a no-brake policy on the descent and I started catching riders and groups ahead of me.

Sean, obscured on the left, and Orwell guest Dillon, on the climb (photograph with thanks to Tommy Heaney)

We had a decent group when the road flattened, and used the team cars and worked together well, before catching another group just behind the leaders. Everyone in this group climbed a lot faster than me. I was very glad of my descending ability and we even caught the leaders at the very bottom of the climb.

I only finished 2’33” down and it would have been a lot more if I hadn’t caught the leaders before the climb. I also moved up 15 places on GC to 54th place.

Stage 6: Ennis Circuit Race (77.5km)

This stage had been described as a “criterium” to me. I may be wrong but I don’t think many crits have over 800m of climbing. If I learned one thing from this race it’s that no stage is easy or predictable.

At the breakfast table I had a Rás stare to rival many of our own Men of the Rás. I was physically and mentally empty and ready for the race to finish after such a tough stage yesterday.

The race started very quickly and continued that way with an average of 42kmph for the whole stage. There were 2 tough climbs on the course and they became significantly more difficult each lap. Even the descents started to become painful with speeds near 70kmph on restricted gears.

On the last lap my only thought was to just hang in there. On the last climb of the race I dug deep and stayed with the bunch. The rest of the race was downhill. I thought I would be fine but it was completely strung out. I hit 72kmph on a flattish piece of road, this is insanely fast on junior gears and there was just no way to move up for the finish. We were all spun out for the last 2-3km and bouncing off each other at over 60kmph. It felt very dodgy but I finished 25th on the stage, my best result of the week.

Photograph with many thanks to Tommy Heaney

I was so happy to have finished the race. I was exhausted but immensely proud to have had the opportunity to represent Scott-Orwell in such a prestigious race.

A massive thank you has to go to Rachel Glendon and Luke Keating. Rachel was a great team manager keeping us in order all week, driving the team car all day and dealing with all our requests. Luke was a brilliant mechanic, cleaning all the bikes every night, getting the car loaded up and preparing recovery drinks for us. He was invaluable. A special thanks to them both for making sure my bike was fixed for Stage 5. It took them over 2 hours to get it fixed, but they made sure it was done, thanks!

Our two guest riders Dillon Ryan (Clonard) and Marcus Harrington (Wexford Wheelers) represented us proudly. Dillon worked tirelessly from his breakaway heroics on Stage 2, through his terrible crash on Stage 4 to his finish in the bunch on the last stage. Marcus gave me motivation to keep going when I was nearly dropped on one of the climbs, as well asking how we were during the stage. We were great as a team and will never forget such a challenging and exciting experience on an international stage race.

I can’t wait ‘til next year!

Sean, Dillon and Marcus (photograph with thanks to Rachel Glendon)