Flying Scotsman Tim Shoreman takes Ras stage two after out-sprinting Irish pair

Tim Shoreman of the British Wheelbase won his fourth career stage victory on Rás Tailteann by out-sprinting home favourite Willem O’Connor, Dubliner Conn McDunphy, and others from a six-strong lead group. The stage covered almost 200km from Rathmore to Banteer. Shoreman benefited from a strong lead-out from Tom Martin in the final sprint. The peloton split multiple times over six categorised climbs, including Caha Pass, Glengarriff, and Cousane Gap. Daire Feeley was active in an 11-man break and spent much of the day out front, but missed the final decisive group. Liam Crowley took maximum points on key climbs to move into the King of the Mountains lead.

"Flying Scotsman Tim Shoreman of the British Wheelbase team took his fourth career stage victory on Rás Tailteann when he out-sprinted home favourite Willem O'Connor (O'Leary Stone Kanturk), Dubliner Conn McDunphy (APS Pro Cycling) and the rest of a six-strong lead group at the end of an almost 200km trek from Rathmore to Banteer on stage two."

"Also in this front group were McDunphy's teammate and overnight mountains leader Adam Lewis and Tom Martin, a teammate of eventual stage winner Shoreman, who won two stages and wore the yellow jersey for a period in last year's edition of the race. With a decent lead-out into the last few hundred metres by Martin, 26-year-old Shoreman showed a clean pair of wheels to his breakaway companions in the sprint to the line with Cork man O'Connor narrowly missing out on a first Rás stage win on his doorstep."

"Six categorised climbs and some savage racing saw the peloton split apart several times over the course of the stage, with former winner and Irish Independent columnist Daire Feeley one of the main protagonists of the day. Feeley was part of an 11-man move that went clear on the second-category Caha Pass after 59km and the Roscommon man spent most of the day out front in one move or another, paying for his efforts by ultimately missing the final group that jumped clear in the closing kilometres."

"Liam Crowley of the Irish national team took maximum points at the summit of Caha and on the next two climbs at Glengarriff and Cousane Gap to propel himself into the Irish Independent King of the Mountains competition lead. The front of the race was reshuffled by the time they hit the slopes of Cuan Mhuire after 139km, with Feeley forging on with overnight leader Rowen Baker of the Isle of Man, Donegal's Ronan McLaughlin (Foyle CC), George Peden of PB Performance and Ruari Byrne of Dublin Pinergy over the top."

Read at Irish Independent