Geoff Liffey's Race Reports

Ras Connachta 3-Day 2003, Cong, Co. Mayo
By Geoff Liffey - 4-6 July 2003

Just a quick report on how we got over the weekend. There were 3 Ravens, John, Paul and myself on the start sheet of 78 riders, which included Mark Scanlon and a couple of Dutch riders over as well. The weekend didn't start too well as my car broke down outside Loughrea. Luckily John and his brother Pat passed by and saw Paul and myself doing some strength intervals pushing the car up the N6 road. After a few phone calls I managed to get sorted and we handed out bits of gear to passing people to take up to Cong for us and we made the start on time.

Friday evening was fast, up to Ballinrobe and then 4 laps of about an 8 mile circuit and then back to Cong, 52 miles done at 27mph. I made the fatal mistake of going up the road on the first lap with a Dutch guy and a few others just before we hit the hilly section. I got shelled then out of the split and slipped through the bunch out the back.. it was brutally fast going over the hilly road the first time and it didn't slow down much after that either. Paul was 2nd in the bunch gallop and got 7th on the stage as there was 5 just up the road about 10secs ahead.

Saturday morning was 2 laps of 34 mile loop with 2 second category climbs, not too much happened until the 2nd climb where a group of 10 or 12 got away, lots of attacks after that but the main group didn't catch them and we all finished in the bunch which lost a good few bodies coming in the road. Sat evening was a horrible little 11k test on a real dead draggy road, even the downhill bits were slow! John and Paul did some good times and were in the top half on the stage.

Yesterday stage was a bit of an epic, 70 miles in the rain with 2 cat 1 and 4 cat 2 climbs. It was really dodgy going out the road to the first climb, I hit the climb at the front of the bunch but 800 metres later I was out the back, it was fairly steep and I didn't have it in the legs to hold on. After passing a few bodies scattered on the side of the road following some crashes, I rode on over the next cat 1 but after the decent I took a shortcut back as the main group was heading out on a 40 mile loop into a headwind and I had no hope of catching them on my own, so I made my way back to the finish where not too many finished the stage. John finished in the bunch and Paul crashed into a ravine but was okay and made it back okay.

It was a good race, well run and good racing. I'll go back again and hopefully have more luck and a bit better condition. We had a good B+B as well, one we stayed in for the Rás in 99, as we were able to come back and have a shower after the stage yesterday before we headed home, which was much appreciated.

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