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Stage 4
Walking down the stairs to the breakfast area and passing the window in the hotel reception area I took a quick glance outside to see what the state of the weather was and witnessed a lovely view of the harbour with four fishing boats laying peacefully on the water with the hills in the background and clear blue skies. This was a lovely opportunity to take a photograph to give you some idea of the spectacular scenery Ireland has to offer
Before opening the door to the right of the window I decided to walk outside and take in the view. As I stepped outside and crossed the road to get closer to the harbour wall, the other thing you noticed is how quiet it is here. Hardly any noise from the local traffic could be heard and it was lovely. Anyhow, after spending ten minutes taking in the view, I then walked back into the hotel, met up with the rest of the team and had breakfast with endless tea or coffee all delivered with a polite and quick service.
The van got loaded up about 1 hour later and with my eighties music playing and Chris and John sitting next to me in the van we set off back to Cahiriveen for the start of today’s stage. Today’s stage is 178km’s long and finished in the town of Killorglin, just 25 km’s up the road from Cahiriveen. The race today does finishing in Killorglin, but on the second time through. The race leaves Cahiriveen, travels into Killorglin then heads out to Dingle taking in several minor climbs and the hardest climb of the 2009 Ras. This climb is known as The Conar Pass and is extremely steep on both sides. One side of the climb being a lot longer (race route) than the other and once over the climb it was then straight back to Killorglin to complete the stage.
As our B&B for the night was in the town of Glenbeigh, half way between Cahiriveen and Killorglin, I thought it would be a good idea if I could drop the bags off early, then drive to Killorglin, park the van up in the car park, then wait for the race to come through where I would drop into the team car and follow the race for the remainder of the circuit. This was the plan which Keith and I agreed too, but soon after arriving at the race HQ we had our first major team problem. At the HQ the riders quickly got changed into their race wear, sorted out any small problems with their bikes, then set off for a warm up. Unknown to Keith, Ray and I, John Heaton Armstrong had a major failure with his rear mech whilst out warming up. Luckily for him the other Surrey riders managed to help John back to us where we could, if possible, get John back up and running before the race commenced at 11.00am.
We took down one of the spare bikes from the team car and quickly changed his Speedplay pedals over then adjusted the position of the saddle height and bar angle to match his race bike, which now was hanging up in the van. The measurements were not perfect, but at least John started the stage with a working machine. This problem caused me to miss my time window for the planned action of the day, but this was far more important to solve.Once the race left Cahiriveen, I then followed until reaching Glenbeigh where I peeled off into the Loisderrig House B&B car park. Mauren, who watched the race outside the B&B greeted me as I park up. I explained to her that my intention of arriving early had gone pear-shaped and that was an unforeseen circumstance which could not be avoided which she was fine with. With the bags inside, Maureen made me a cup of coffee and offered me a slice of cake which I did not refuse.
I then explained to her the ins and outs of stage racing and what the Surrey league was all about. An hour had passed and it was time for me to leave and find a space in Killorglin ready for the race finish. The finish in Killorglin is in the high street up the short climb before the main roundabout.
Another 1.5 hours went by of me just waiting around, but then I received a phone call from Ray. Ray then explained to me that John Veness was down and in a bad way. John had crashed on the descent of the Conar Pass and suffered some nasty injuries. Crashing at 50mph into a wall is going to cause some damage and John was taken from the crash area straight to Tralee hospital. Keith was on the scene almost straight away as well as the ambulance crews. The race doctor was also in attendance being the first to arrive.
As the race continued into Killorglin with Nicholas Walker (Cinelli-DownUnder) taking the victory followed by Jan Barta (Arbo KTM Junkers) in second spot and Russ Downing (Rapha Condor) finishing third all I was thinking about was where the team were in relation and how John was. After 3 minutes 53 seconds Chris Mac came across the line and a further 13 minutes 21 seconds came John Heaton Armstrong followed by Richard Hoult and Steve Calland.
Once everyone was in we quickly packed the van then set off back up to Glenbeigh were we then unloaded the van and set about cleaning the bikes. Keith then drove off to Tralee hospital to see John and get an update. It’s not nice knowing that one of your team lies in a hospital bed with some nasty injuries, which were a broken collar bone, 3 broken ribs, punctured lung and some nasty face wounds. In the meantime the rest of us just carried on as you do with the remaining jobs. The guys also said that it was about time I had some time to myself so told me to get out on the bike. I got changed into my Wiggle kit, jumped on the spare bike then rode over the mountains for 1.5 hours coming across a beautiful lake surrounded by pine forest. Hardly any cars passed me and I though this was idyllic.
On return to the B&B we then went over to the Towers Hotel to have our dinner and reflect on today’s eventful and said day in the saddle for Surrey League.
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