May 28, 2005 — On Stage 5 some things finally started to go right for us in the Rás. Buck finally cracked out a strong stage finish with fifth, but there’s a story behind the scenes.

Today’s stage was supposed to be the toughest of the Rás, 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

38 Andrew Randell (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee
62 Mark Pozniak (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee
145 Zach Bell (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee

Under 23 classification

1 Stuart Gillespie (USA) TIAA-CREF 18.05.51
2 Alex Coutts (GBr) Scotland 3.00
3 Ian MacGregor (USA) TIAA-CREF 4.29
4 Paudi O’Brien (Irl) Grant Thornton 4.56
5 Mark Cassidy (Irl) cycleways.com 5.13
6 Martin Snizek (Cze) Elmarco KK 5.31
7 Robert Partridge (GBr) Stena 5.33
8 Jiri Korbel (Cze) Elmarco KK 6.31
9 Michal Stastny (Cze) Elmarco KK 10.41
10 Mark Pozniak (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee 10.59


GC after Stage 5

1 Chris Newton (GBr) Recycling.co.uk 18.00.40
2 Malcolm Elliott (GBr) Trinity Capital 0.08
3 Morten Hegreberg (Nor) Sparebanken Vest 2.16
4 Tim Barry (Irl) Dan Morrissey 2.32
5 Robin Sharman (GBr) Recycling.co.uk
6 Yanto Barker (GBr) Stena 2.37
7 Gabriel Rasch (Nor) Sparebanken Vest
8 Kevin Dawson (GBr) Trinity Capital 3.04
9 Stuart Gillespie (USA) TIAA-CREF 5.11
10 John Tanner (GBr) Trinity Capital 5.29

33 Kevin Miller (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee 10.19
63 Mark Pozniak (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee
91 Andrew Randell (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee
124 Zach Bell (Can) Jet Fuel Coffee 1.09.42