The Orwell team before the start of Stage 1. Left to Right: Sean O'Kane, Cesar Lopes, Ilie Gabuja
The Charleville 2-Day is traditionally the last stage race of the year. For some, it's one last opportunity to get their fix before the winter starts, for others it's a chance to dip their toes in the water and get a bit of experience ahead of next season. Orwell fielded a strong team this year with Cesar Lopes, Ilie Gabuja and Sean O'Kane competing in the A2/A3 event and Alan Clarke representing the club in the A4 race. While Clarke is no stranger to stage racing, the rest of the Orwell crew are still in their first year of competing in multi-day events (although Ilie has now done four this year!). For Sean O'Kane, it was his first stage race and he's hoping the experience will stand to him next year when he plans to tackle more.
"Stage one was a rolling course with a couple short hard efforts but nothing to really split the bunch, he said. "With about 6km to go, there was one rider solo and then a group of three in front of the peloton. At the base of the final climb, I launched it and immediately got a gap, with Cesar disrupting the chase behind behind. I bridged to the group of three up ahead and we worked well to the finish line but were unable to catch the solo rider ahead, so I finished 5th in the end. Unfortunately Cesar had quite a bad crash in the peloton and was unable to continue. Ilie cramped up in the final 15km and finished 2 minutes back".
Alan Clarke, ready for action ahead of Stage 1.
With Cesar having to spend the night in hospital, the team had to change their plans for the rest of the weekend. Alan very generously volunteered to give up the rest of his race to help the remainder of the team finish the race and get home safely.
"Stage two was a short, pan flat time trial. I tried to measure my effort too much and ended up going out too easy and had too much come the last km," said Sean". I lost a lot of time here, bleeding 52 seconds to the leader. Stage three was the decisive GC day and it was aggressive from the start. Once we got to the base of the first rep of the main climb of the day (4.5km 4%), a group of favourites went up the road early. I decided to keep my powder dry and we caught them close to the top but some of them countered again. Despite being a small gap at the top, that was the last we would see of them as the group failed to work well together. On the second rep, I tried to bridge to riders in the gap but was caught just at the top. I finished in the bunch at the end of the stage".
