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Tour of Ireland

By Joe Hall • 24th August 2009 12:24pm • Posted in Events

Picture by worldwidecyclesblog

Rapha Condor competed at the Tour of Ireland over the weekend, riding against some of the biggest names in pro cycling. The third and final gruelling stage saw National Road Race Champion, Kristian House (pictured), finish a respectable 12th, coming 15th overall in the GC. Chris Newton, Olympic bronze medallist, was the only other Rapha Condor rider to finish the punishing stage, placing 39th overall.

Almost half the peloton, including Mark Cavendish and Lance Armstrong, retired as they arrived at the final circuit of the stage, many not even attempting the climb up St. Patrick’s Hill. The bad weather made for very volatile racing. Typical of the weekend’s action, several breakaways eventually saw a two-group split. ‘I was descending blind due to all the crap off the road from the bad weather.’ Said Kristian. ‘This made it hard to get back into the front group and, of course, made it pretty dangerous.’ Kristian, however, relishes tough conditions such as these and was disappointed not to be in the leading break. ‘I’m kicking myself a bit as I was aiming for a top ten finish here. I think I made a few schoolboy errors and showed some of the other riders too much respect. I should have been more ruthless.’

The Tour of Ireland provides a good platform for home grown riders to test themselves against the best in the world. Russell Downing, brother of Dean Downing of Rapha Condor, won the overall event. ‘I’m genuinely happy for him’ Kristian commented. ‘It’s great to see domestic riders win against the top pros and prove they can compete with the best.’

Kristian also revealed to us that his new race mitts were getting double takes from a lot of riders and fans over the weekend. One fan (unsurprisingly wearing a Rapha T-Shirt) even asked if Kristian would give him the gloves. ‘It’s a common problem, people are always asking me for pieces of my kit.’

Comments

Douglas Fielding-Smith

2nd September 2009 12:00pm

Big up to Russ! Showed the Pro Tour riders how it's done. Rode out of his skin on the last day and chased down anything that the others threw at him. He's an exciting rider and ballsy to boot. Can't believe that he wasn't going to be picked for the worlds. He's been the best domestic rider for a couple of years as well as being one of the best British riders.
There is a lot of coasting riders in the Europeon peleton and Russ deserves to be there instead of them. Hopefully he'll get picked up by a bigger team but I wouldn't hold out for Sky. I think they would try and limit his attacking style. People have citicised him for this in the past-they even mentioned his lack of team work in this weeks Cycling news. However, this is what makes him so good. I'd like to see him doing a Gilbert/Chavenal/Voeckler kind of role and break from the front. Anyhoo, I'll be down in the smoke on the 19th to see you take the tour of Britain!

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