Don't Knocknagulliagh

Who said that weekends were for sleeping in?

Volunteer marshals need to be out of bed before 6 am if there is to be any chance of reporting for duty at half six.

Having returned home just before 9 pm after the Team Time Trial Big Start and having a late meal, I had to begin a draft of text about the day’s events, La Grande Partenza.  

This I did as well as downloading the day’s photographs.  Publication of the new post will, however, have to wait until tomorrow.  Sleep beckons as midnight rapidly approaches.

Saturday (may 10) dawns with rays of welcome, if unexpected, sunshine after a night’s heavy rain.   

I decide to cycle to 3 Glengall Street, repeating yesterday’s trip.  Behave like a cyclist and then observe the professionals do it expertly.

For no reason that is explicable by me, volunteers are less in number than yesterday and, in stark contrast to yesterday, there is no queuing - thankfully.   

After registering, I discover that breakfast (as well as a packed lunch) is available.

I meet a couple of familiar faces from last year’s big event – the World Police and Fire Games.  One of them is the man who loaned his holiday home gratis to four Italian police officers for their use after their swimming competition had ended.  He was content that they enjoyed their stay and his excellent hospitality.

I am assigned to a section of road between Antrim and Ballymena.   

Today’s stage is 218 kilometres leaving Belfast and travelling to the Giants Causeway with a return along the gorgeous Antrim coast road. 

What we want, and what we really really need, is a sunny day to help showcase the splendour of our region’s landscape to Italy and the rest of Europe.

I am stationed at the well-decorated Seven Towers roundabout on the southern outskirts of Ballymena.  

An advantage of this site is that our group will return in time to see the live coverage of the second half of the stage on BBC 2 Northern Ireland.  Yippee.

Roll out in Belfast is scheduled for 10 50 am.  The estimated time of arrival at our location is 11 20 – 25.  

When we are dropped off, the only other people are a few police officers.  Soon after a professional film maker appears, recording the event for Ballymena Borough Council.  He obliges and takes a sample photo of my partner and me.   

The sun is shining reasonably, but it is not yet 10 30.

Almost unnoticed a substantial crowd, predominantly family groups, appear.  It’s great to have company and to sense the excitement of the general public.

Just after 11 the fabled caravan begins its noisy arrival – a series of pink taxis followed by cars of various sponsors.  Slightly disappointing I have to say compared to the equivalent caravan which we observed in 1998 when the Tour de France came to Ireland.

At this point the skies darken a bit. 

  

Breakaway group at 7 Towers roundabout, Ballymena

By the time a breakaway lead group of four riders reaches our roundabout, it is drizzling and becoming cooler.   

This trend continues when, several minutes later (perhaps as many as five), the peleton voraciously descends.

Peleton at 7 Towers

A few minutes afterwards, following the disappearance of a platoon of support cars ambulances and other vehicles, the sun returns and our bus crawls up to collect us - with pleasing efficiency.   

I look forward to getting home, doing some grocery shopping, going to the gym for a sauna and swim, watching the Munster Ulster rugby game on TV, and finalising yesterday’s blog post about the team time trial.

More importantly, the priority is to watch the Antrim coastal stage live on TV in comfort at home on the couch.   

The breakaway group of four is still out in front at Waterfoot village when I begin watching at about 2 20 in the afternoon.   

The weather in the Antrim Glens seems, unfortunately, to have deteriorated since the morning.  

I can only admire these cyclists, most of whom hail from warmer climes.

If the inclement conditions continue tomorrow from Armagh the cyclists will definitely find the next stage something of a shock to the system.  

It is in Bari in the southern end of Italy, after Monday’s so-called rest-day.

I giggle at the TV commentators mispronouncing our sonorous Gaelic place-names. Carnlough (home village of Liverpool football club’s manager Brendan Rodgers) seem straightforward to us.  

Maybe Knocknagulliagh is excusable as it may look complicated.   

We shouldn’t object.  I know plenty of people here who can’t pronounce Giro properly, preferring to adopt an Anglo-Saxon phonetic by saying a word that sounds like a Post Office financial transaction.  You say Gyro, I say Geero.

As I had predicted to my colleague in Ballymena, breakaway groups on flat opening stages are usually caught and swallowed up a few kilometres from the finish-line.  This is exactly what happens.

On the streets of loyalist north Belfast under the shadow of Union Jacks, at first three and soon after the final member of the group of four, surrender to the pack.   

The pace builds in the final few kilometres – breakneck speed fits, as the sense of peril grows.

How no collisions occur is (no pun intended) entirely a matter of accident rather than design particularly as some of the street furniture appears to lack the presence of a red flag-bearing official.   

With rain coming down heavily and a couple of tight and slippery turns ahead, nerves are being severely tested.

Altogether and in one piece, the race or group entity somehow gets home without mishap.  The German poster boy sprint favourite Marcel Kittel does a Mark Cavendish powerhouse drive over the line.

To observe the enormous public support for today’s race stage made me feel hugely proud of my compatriots.   

Bearing in mind the poor weather, the sight of so many people on the roundabout at Ballymena and on the footpaths of Waterfoot, Carnlough, Glenarm, Ballygally, Larne, Newtownabbey all the way into the jam-packed centre of Belfast did my heart an awful lot of good.

©Michael McSorley 2014