The Sensa Sensations

This year's Junior Tour marked my return to racing after the exams, barring one wet day down in Cobh. I was set to don the red,black and white of Team Munster Sensa 2. Munster fielded fifteen riders from regions that exceeded the Munster province herself. When riding for Munster, under the scrutiny of Dan Curtin, everyone adopts a Cork accent for the duration of the race. First rider off in the time-trial was at seven o'clock sharp, followed by the rest at one minute intervals. I was off the start line at 7:06pm, being chased by the Australian American Circuit Race Champion Owen Gillott. I was really up for the time-trial and had set my expectations high at a top five on the stage. Those expectations were shattered in the first 500 metres of the event. The first kilometre of the time-trial brought us out of town onto a really good main road, but the traffic in the town was too heavy on a wet and windy night, and I got held up by two cars in the space of 300 metres. I rather impolitely asked the drivers of those cars to get a move on but by then the damage was done. Even with the time loss I pulled it together enough to grab eleventh place, thirty seconds of the stage winner Mark Downey. On the plus side I had good power in my legs so my confidence was high for the rest of the week. 

We were staying in a beautiful hotel roughly ten kilometres from Race HQ complete with a pool and games room which we all made good use of over the course of the week.  It was late by then time we got to bed that night after our showers, massages and dinners. I was rooming with my former team-mate Cian Dwyer, Comeragh rider Conor Trihy and Mark "The Biafran" O'Callaghan from Limerick. It was there that I found out that the word "room-mate" translates to "shower gel stealer" in Dungarvan-ese. Cian claimed that his routine is to go asleep at ten o'clock every night, although I saw no proof whatsoever of this at any time. Breakfast was at 8:30am where we were greeted by a feast of cereals, breads, croissants and cooked breakfasts. The look of shock on peoples faces when I went up for some egg and toast after my second bowl of Weetabix dissipated gradually as the week went on. 

Stage 2 was overcast, but warmer than most people figured. Arm-warmers were being rolled down throughout the entire bunch after the first KoH. This stage provided plenty of chances to test out the climbing legs, which were much better than I expected. Downey and the NRPT's maillot jaune came under threat very early on as Eddie Dunbar wasted little time in making his intentions known and lit the afterburners and rocketed up the road with Dylan O'Brien and a Frenchman in tow. They maintained their gap on the leg-sapping back roads but when the race aimed for home on an exposed main road the gap plummeted. The last 15km were very hard, with a strong cross-headwind punching the bunch in the face. I, like many others contemplated having a bite at the cherry but nobody was getting an inch, Dylan Foley was marking everything just as all his own moves were being marked all day. Fellow Munster rider guesting for Team Sensa Jack Sadler showed supreme power, nouse and engine to take the stage while sprinting in the saddle. Nobody could match his in-saddle cadence or flat-out power in the last 200 metres. It was then recovery time, get the legs in the best condition as is possible for the next morning. And boy would we need it! The Cliff's of Moher 4 kilometre KoH was a dark moment in my life. Looking at the profile the day beforehand it looked like a climber's climb, but in reality it was two power climbs stuck together, steep at the bottom for about 1.5km and draggy for the remainder. By the top, I must've looked like Andrei Greipel's doppelganger. Stage 3 in my opinion was the hardest stage of this year's race, although the Stena Line Irish Team might have something to say about that. There wasn't a single let up in pace all day and you had to fight for your position all the time. I have never seen so many steep ramp ups on a single piece of road. They say Scandinavians always make the best rally drivers because of their roads mirroring rally conditions, why aren't there any rally drivers hailing from Co. Clare? 

As the week progressed, our hotel room became the haven for massages. Fourteen tight and crampy teenagers would pile in and literally turn our room into downtown Baghdad. The scenes inside the room were like something from a Christy Moore song, and would definitely rival Orica Green-Edge's Backstage Pass videos. I would like to publicly apologize to our physio for the scenes and conversations he was put through. I hope you aren't too scarred, kind Sir. The race for the dinner table in the evening was hotter than the race for the finish line. All because of one reason, the bread rolls. Whoever got there first benefited hugely from an abundance of rolls from the surrounding tables, if you were sneaky enough. Obviously, were caught by one of the waiters, who then told us that if we wanted more that we should just ask. This opened the floodgates. We applied his rule to every aspect of the dinner. Each and every one of us put on out best Oliver Twist impression and would be a shoe-in for the part in a play - "Please Sir, can I have some more?" 

Stage 4, the Queen Stage. The stage that would test the will, the legs and the mettle of each and every rider in the bunch. With six categorized climbs on the already undulating roads leading out of Ennis this was D-Day. The ranked category one climb of Castle Hill was feared by most in the bunch and with there never having been an 80 kilo mountain goat before in the history of cycling it was imperative that I got up the road beforehand, and plus it would be nice to get into a break again after a long spell away. A move slipped away containing riders from the NRPT and Stena Ireland, it looked like a good move so I jumped when they had forty seconds on the bunch. A bloke from De Ver Cycles came across to me and we eventually got across to the break group. He wasn't too keen on doing long turns which meant it took us a while to get across. We got across just before the descent into The Burren, I probably should have sat on at the back but the descent was a fast one and I like descending. I was hitting 40-45 miles per hour on the descent, and then sat on like a good lad. The break worked well together and were soon joined by Cian Dwyer and the Green Jersey on the shoulders Harry Franklin of De Ver Cycles. Munster now had three riders in the fifteen man move, Cian, Jason Prendergast and I. We had nearly two minutes at the bottom of Castle Hill and little over thirty seconds at the top. Apparently some Frenchie just lifted going up there. From what I could see the French riders were immune to gravity. They could float up the hills, much to my dismay. But on the downhills their lack of gravity bit them back, and that's where I'd come flying past. The pace that Foley and Fallon set in the final ten kilometre run-in was vastly impressive. We were at 35-40 miles per hour, so Omega Pharma Quick-Step if you guys are reading this, these are Cavendish's next lead-out men. And then to top it all off, when I crossed the line with more grey hairs than I started with that morning, I heard that Jack had won. A climber's stage! Pretty impressive man.

Stage 5 was the easiest on paper, so I and my fatiguing legs were almost looking forward to it. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems in the world of Seán Hahessy. It's not uncommon to develop a sore in a stage race, what is uncommon is to develop multiple sores making finding a comfortable spot in the saddle damn near impossible. Eventually, about 20 miles in, it numbed and I could sort of enjoy racing. A tyre blowout soon put that enjoyment out the back and in the cars. After I was paced back on, I found it very hard to move up the bunch, we were on narrow roads all day and the bunch spread out and filled every inch of free road. To add insult to injury, the sterling job that Foley did on the front all day was made harder by a crash in the final four kilometres, he rolled seven feet and came to a halt in a farmer's yard. There was no aspect of this race that could be deemed easy. He rolled home over four minutes down and had lost his high GC placing. Gillott won the stage with Downey in second, the finishing roads were narrow and the last twenty kilometres were as sketchy as novice artist's sketchpad. 

Stage 6, the final assault. The day when Eddie Dunbar and Dan Curtin's hours of labour paid off. And what better way to do it only by kicking everbody's ass when they were already well and truly kicked. The stage finished in Cratloe, which in Irish means "skeleton", which is interesting enough considering the climb was called Gallow's Hill, but before I had time to ponder this thought the final climb hoved into view and my heart-rate skyrocketed. The climb itself was long but it didn't take long to cover the ground. I was losing ground on the steeper bits but when the gradient plateau'd a little I was able to stick it in the big ring and let rip. I can't really remember the last 200 metres of the climb as I was so focussed on holding the wheel in front of me. We all gathered in a local farmyard which had been turned into a makeshift car park. It was a good thing it was a farmyard, because I had just calved. In the end I dropped one place to joint ninth overall and young rider Stephen Shanahan moved up one into sixth place. 



When I arrived home hours later I found out that Andy Murray had won Wimbledon, just as Dan Curtin predicted earlier that week. And that put things in perspective for me anyway, Dan Curtin is very rarely wrong, he has the great ability to foresee greatness in people. And this week I got a masterclass in his teaching methods.

I'd like to thank everyone who poured their heart into this giant team, every one of us appreciated it and couldn't have done it without you. It is a bit cliché to say that the number of people I wish to thank is too numerous, but it's true. There were so many people that made my life easier before, during and after the Junior Tour. Thank you one and all.

Happy trails,

Seán.