Joe Lewis: Cycling Tribe Blog

I am no longer just plain ordinary Joe, oh no. I am writing this as something much, much more. I, along with 4 of my team-mates (Stu Shaw, Rhys Pollock, Dave Pell and Peter Macdonald) are now “MEN OF THE RAS!!” and we all have a little gold medal with some Gaelic scrawl on the back to prove it.

It’s alright, settle down, there’s plenty of Joe for everyone.

I just finished the FBD RAS in Ireland, a UCI 2.2 race run annually which the Irish take much pride in running and racing. An unpredictable race with 5 man teams where the race is never too far up the road, a race at which the locals opt out of breakfast just to watch and instead indulge in a ‘pint and a fag’.

Now 8 days is a long time to race a normal race, let alone this icon of Irish cycling which; when won gets you free pints of the Irish national dish: Guinness, a fork to eat it with and immortality for the rest of all time in the form of a bestselling book published every few years called “The Men Of The Ras”.

Coming from a sunny Belgium we were expecting a little of the Irish weather, but also prepared, as Belgium isn’t known for sun. Yet we were happily surprised to be treated to about 10minutes of rain for the whole 8 days.

This good weather must have rubbed off well onto us, as we had a relatively good tour, Pelly got himself a pretty pink hill climbers jersey after he was in the GC move on day one putting us in a good position from the beginning with stage winner and yellow jersey for a couple of days; Dan Craven from Rapha-Condor.

Day two saw Stu and Rhys in a strong move which looked as If it would have been very influential to the results had the stage not been cancelled due to a 4wd having a head on with the Peleton, luckily we all missed it but some Spanish and Italian guys were fairly badly hurt.

Day 3 sadly saw another big stack with one of the Kiwi team Tom ‘scud’ Scully hitting a power pole in the sprint, hopefully he’s made his way back home by now and makes a speedy recovery, Irishman David O’Loughlin won from a group of four that barely stayed away.

Day 4 was another one of those frustrating ‘almost Joe’ moments. After making the break of the day and an awesome lead-out from my team-mate Stu Shaw I came around the last corner in front just to be pipped by one of the Germans: Maximillion May just before the line. Frustrating but a good result none-the less. As a bonus I got to wear the white jersey for a day until the end of stage five, (won by Jon Tiernan-Locke from Rapha) when we had Pelly and Macca in the break and I lost the jersey by an arguable second.

On day 6 everyone was starting to get tired, sadly this was also the day with 9 or so KOM’s in the last 50kms. Surprisingly this didn’t break up the field as much as expected and most of the bunch was still together with 20km to go when Dan Craven and John Delenkolb broke away and rode 50 seconds into the chasing peleton, I finished 6^th in the stage, with the rest of the boys safely in the bunch.

Day 7 brought the havoc that was expected the previous day, after 80kms and two Cat 1 climbs I was alone in a bunch of 20 riders with some very sore legs. The bunch split on the last cat 3 and I was in the second group, Mark Cassidy from AN post won solo after an all day break and I finished in a group 20 seconds behind the favorites, still 8^th overall but having lost some time to the white jersey.

The final stage started in Kilcullen and finished in a bunch sprint in Skerries, after a few token break away attempts one stuck and the leaders team rode the front, after a tough 7 days it was a hard ask to stay away in the break on day 8 and everyone came back for John Degelkolb from the Thurigen Energie team to win the bunch sprint with Stu in 4^th.

So that’s it, 8 days of sunshine with about 5 minutes of rain all up. Hardly typical Ireland but an Ireland I will fondly remember, until next time when it pours…

Rubber side down, I’m off to put on my “Man of the RAS” medal and think of racing stories to embellish and tell to my future grandkids.