Matthew Teggart’s Rás Diary – Stage 6 Dungloe – Donegal
Another hard enough day. It was tough from about the 20-km mark when we turned into crosswinds. There were big time gaps everywhere and lots of guys suffering. Once the front group formed though, JLT controlled it pretty well.
Kasper rode really well today and swept up the KOMs. Our front group got whittled down as came towards the finish and there was only about 30 of sprinting for the win.
A wee group of three got a bit of gap on the rest of us but I thought I could get fourth. One of the Armée de Terre guys blocked me though. I was coming past him and shouted ‘Move, move, move,’ He took a glance at me and deliberately moved across my path. He knew what he was doing. I had words with him as we crossed the line warning him to never do that again. I was raging at the time.
As a team, we rode a really good race. I think we were the only team with all five riders in the front group so we’re still riding strongly. We’re still looking for stage wins and we’ll have to see how tomorrow goes. I’m expecting some strong tailwinds and it could rain so it might be a tricky day.
Damien managed to drop his new Oakleys today just like Kasper did the other day. It happened on Glengesh Pass. The climb should have been easy. I was riding on the front under no real pressure. I had lots of family on the climb and it was pretty cool seeing them. However, our swannies were on a steep part of the climb where it was too difficult to take both hands off the bars to put the feedbag over our shoulders.
So me and Damien had to ride over the top of the climb with one hand holding onto a feedbag. Going over the top, there was a really strong crosswind. Cameron Meyer decided to put the hammer down while we were still struggling with these bags. We started to slip down the group and eventually I just had to put a bottle in my cage and throw the rest of the bag away. It would have been difficult to explain if we had lost the race because of a food bag.
While Damien was also struggling with his bag, he knocked his €200 Oakleys off his head. He shouted at somebody to grab them. The team tweeted about them afterwards and somebody has got in touch to tell us that they found them. Kurt wouldn’t have been too pleased with another lost pair.
My legs felt good today and it was probably my best day. I’m not really concerned about moving up on GC, I’m more interested in another stage win, so that’s what I’m going to look for in these last two stages.
