The Junior Tour of Wales is probably the most prestigious junior stage race in the UK. Previous winners include Fred Wright, Tom Pidcock, Hugh Carthy and Eddie Dunbar, while both Ben Healy and Archie Ryan have made the podium. With five stages over four days and a field of just over 100 riders, it’s a serious challenge.
This year’s Leinster team included Patrick O’Sullivan and David Harrington from Pinergy Orwell Wheelers, as well as a super-late entry for Killian O’Brien, recently of this parish. Race support was from Stephen O’Shea, Niall Doggett and Konrad the mechanic.
The Leinster team: Niall, Conor, Killian, David, Josh, Patrick, Matthew, Stephen and Konrad.
Friday evening: Stage One
A 9km individual time trial with a proper hill at the finish. The best performance for the team was Killian, with a fantastic 6th place despite riding it on a road bike. Josh Calally (Lucan CRC) decided to try for the KOM jersey, soft-pedalling to the bottom of the finishing hell and then going full bore. He put in a fantastic ride, an agonising single second behind the fastest climber!
Saturday: Stage Two
Stage two was a 114km road stage with three category 2 climbs. There was a significant break in the middle of the stage with six riders getting away: three from the very strong Fensham Howes team (one riding for Scotland) and two from Leinster: Killian and Josh! As the gap built to over thirty seconds, Josh punctured from the break and had to wait for the whole race to pass to get a wheel change. Tragedy! Killian fought hard to split it but the Fensham Howes boys used all the tricks of the trade to spoil, and the five riders crossed the line together, with Killian in fourth. Given the amount of climbing, the race speed of just under 42kmh left a gap to the rest of the field of nearly two minutes: the main GC protagonists for the race had been selected. It was a windy day and there were significant splits in the group behind, with Patrick and David a little further back.
Killian in the break, with the British champion in his wheel.
Sunday: two stages, one storm!
After a drive west from the race HQ in Merthyr Tydvil, stage three was an hour-long crit on a narrow, flat exposed track with a short hill on every lap: all the elements you need for suffering, with hard sprints from every corner, standing water, strong crosswinds and the rest of it! Conor Prendergast (Galway Bay, riding for Leinster) looked like he had timed an attack perfectly, only to be caught by the marauding pack with half a lap to go – with insult added the injury as a crash just after the catch led to a suspected concussion, and the end of his race.
Fancy riding in these conditions with 100 juniors!? Sunday was brutal from beginning to end: Patrick in the middle of the pack.
Stage four, held the same afternoon, would normally be on the road, but a very strict interpretation of Wales’ newly-introduced (and very welcome!) 20mph speed limits in all urban areas prevented the race travelling through villages, scuppering the route. Instead, it was another crit, on a pan-flat 2.4km motor racing-circuit: for 40 laps! “The rain has stopped” said the organisers as the race started, but after one lap the heavens opened. With huge amounts of standing water and 50kmh gusts, the race must have been close to being cancelled, but after an hour the weather softened just enough for aggressive racing to kick off. The first and second-placed riders (Seb Grindley and Elliot Rowe) managed to break from the pack with a couple of others, and the pack split to pieces in the punishing crosswinds. The remaining chasers looked to Leinster (with Killian in fourth) to work, and they worked hard to minimise the damage, with Josh and Killian leading a small breakaway group as the leaders’ team-mates disrupted the chase. Grindley won solo by a massive 1:22 while Rowe only gained 7 seconds on Killian’s group. Patrick and Matthew Walls (Lucan CRC) finished in the biggest group, 2:39 back. Everybody was absolutely on their knees for the drive back to their accommodation, with one more stage to go. The rider in third place on GC lost significant time, moving Killian onto the bottom step of the podium.
Monday. Stage five: The Tumble
Road restrictions had removed 20km and a significant hill from the middle of the final stage, but it was still 89km, ending with the iconic Tumble Mountain. With the GC favourites marking each other out, a sizeable break was allowed up the road, including Matthew, with Fensham Howes and Leinster controlling the gap. One rider put in a big attack shortly before Tumble, while the break split to pieces behind him. The GC riders rode the hill at crazy speed and very nearly closed the leader’s two minute gap by the top. The top three finished within a few seconds of each other, with Josh and Matthew 30 seconds behind and Patrick and David a little further back, as most riders crossed the line on their own, completely spent.
David crosses the line at the end of Stage 5
So no change on GC meant Killian finished in third on both General Classification and King of the Mountains, while the team missed out on third place overall by a cruel 4 seconds! Patrick was 40th on GC and David 74th.
In the racers' own voices ...
Of course, every rider has a different experience on every stage in a stage race, so here is what the Orwell riders have to say about it:
Killian O’Brien’s perspective is given in an interview on VeloUK.
The podium: every race should come with a cuddly toy!
Patrick O’Sullivan says:
Preparation started badly when I realised my frame was cracked 2 days before the start of the race. Luckily Ivan came to the rescue and gave me a lend of his bike.
The TT went well for the team with Killian and Conor placing 6th and 17th respectively and Josh narrowly missing out on the KOM jersey.
The first road stage was one to forget for me. It was my first time on the new bike and I soon realised that I had my saddle position slightly off when I felt a pain in my hamstring. That evening Stephen, Konrad and myself set out to rectify it and had a mini bike fit session to try and replicate the position as close as possible to my own bike which was not an easy task given my own bike was a size and a half bigger.
Stage 3 was a short circuit race which was made more difficult by the fact that it was raining and there were leaves on one of the technical corners. Ten minutes into this race my glasses were starting to get blurry from the amount of rain and water spray, so I decided to throw them off which I soon realised was a bad idea. I then spent the rest of the race with my eyes half open. I managed to position well coming into the last 2 corners inside the top 20 but three separate crashes in front of me on the last climb halted me from moving up any further. One of which included Conor who had been away solo for the last five laps.
Going into the last stage the focus for the team was on securing a top 3 GC for Killian. It was great to see the whole team working hard on that last stage to put Killian in the best position to secure that top finish for the team. Overall the race was a great experience for me and the team.
David Harrington says:
I was delighted to be a part of the strong Leinster team for the Junior tour of Wales. It was an amazing opportunity to compete with some of the top juniors and gain experience at an international stage race.
It was completely different to Irish racing, especially the circuit races, which were even more challenging in the heavy rain. I feel like I’ve learned a lot at this race and I’m also very proud of the team’s performance over the weekend, and Killian’s fantastic GC podium. I’d like to thank Orwell wheelers and Cycling Leinster for their support in making this possible.
And finally ...
A big thanks for Cycling Leinster (particularly Stephen, Niall and Konrad) and Pinergy Orwell Wheelers for their support. It’s a huge honour to wear your provinces’ colours, and Killian, Patrick and David left it all out on the road: they might even have dried out by now!
