When NOT to get a flat

Stage 5: Templemore - Abbeyleix, 114 km Well today some things finally started to go right for us in the Ras. Buck finally cracked out a strong stage finish with fifth today, but there's a story behind the scenes.

Today's stage was supposed to be the toughest of the Ras, and it was hard, but in the end didn't crack the field as many had expected it would. Buck was our man today, he not only made all the pivotal moves of the stage, he also created them. And to top it all off, he punctured out of the final break today, and burned a lot of matches getting back on. Once back on, he still managed fifth at the end. So, we're pretty happy. We knew our aggressive riding would pay off sooner or later, and now we are hoping for another good stage, and hopefully a podium stage finish before the end of the race on Sunday.

Zach's run of misfortune continued today, he had a mechanical with his bike early in the stage and due to the narrow roads and huge caravan it was a while before we could get to him and fix the problem. By the time he got going, it was game over.

Results

1 Morten Christiansen (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 3.23.13
2 Simon Kelly (Irl) Nucleus
3 Roger Aiken (Irl) Safe Cycling
4 Mark Lovatt (GBr) Trinity Capital
5 Kevin Miller (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee
6 Rostislav Krotky (Cze) Elmarco KK 0.02
7 Denis Lynch (Irl) Kanturk
8 Are Andresen (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 0.05
9 Eugene Moriarty (Irl) cycleways.com
10 Chris Newton (GBr) Recycling.co.uk
11 Yanto Barker (GBr) Stena
12 Malcolm Elliott (GBr) Trinity Capital
13 Sigvard Kukk (Est) Kalev Chocolate
14 Morten Hegreberg (Nor) Sparebanken Vest
15 Paudi O'Brien (Irl) Grant Thornton
16 Evan Oliphant (GBr) Scotland
17 Andrew Roche (Irl) Worldwide Cycles
18 John Tanner (GBr) Trinity Capital
19 Daniel Lynch (Irl) Kanturk
20 Philip Finegan (Irl) Usher Insulations

[+] more results and the stage story from cyclingnews.com