The usually rainy and grim conditions on the Emerald Isle have been offset today by windless sunny conditions. Almost as an ode to this we get a bright sunny yellow break of three to celebrate.
Here we have two 25 year old French Canadians: Matteau and Boivin.
The road 'captain' of the break is Romain Kilun who wears his teams colours with pride front and back.
The trio's lead gets to a maximum of 7.30 before teams of the favourites look to pull it back. Team Vontobel and Team ASDA-Savers are the first teams to really ramp the pace up as we approach one of the later Seskin Hill ascents.
With just under 50km to go, the gap is down to 2.30 and the pack is beginning to shed its numbers including a suprise as Turkish climber Sayer is constantly reported as one of the dropped riders. This is possibly down to poor positioning more than anything but he keeps yo-yoing off the back as the riders clamber over Seskin Hill.
Bank of Ireland – Irish Cycling and Team Nordeus now make it a very blue front of the pack.
It is chapaeu to the breakaway though as they are impressively holding the pack off with 25km to go and just two more Seskin Hill ascents their lead is still 1.20. The pace of the pack has reduced the peloton to 85 riders as things are beginning to get tetchy.
Sarabia looks to make an early jump with 24km to go.
It goes nowhere though as now Team Vontobel join Bank of Ireland and Nordeus in the chase.
The penultimate ascent of Seskin Hill see's Bank of Ireland really pile on the pressure as they cause a major split over the top.
Just 22 riders have split off the main pack, the following riders are in this split.
This means several riders including Haas, Geshcke, Passalacque, Schurter have missed the split.
There are also a couple of teams with numbers at the front,so whilst this move is relatively early with 17 km left it is one that is going to be hard to chase down.
There is still the matter though of catching the break that somehow still have a minute on the split pack. Tiernan Locke feels this is the time to up the pace with Wyss and Gaimon marking this move.
As we re-enter Carrick for the penultimate time some of the contenders from the second pack realise that there will be no fusion of the pelotons and a forced to attack.
Duggan, Torobio, Geschke, Walker, Haas, Sarabia and Fahnert try to jump across.
12km to go and this break start to realise they have chances of a high finish and even the win, they have managed their efforts really well.
This trio have 51 seconds on the 23 chasers (Bank of Ireland managed to keep control of Wyss, Tiernan-Locke and Gaimon).
Brilliant effort by Duggan who has made it to the back of the this 23 rider split.
Haas is making a really determined effort 30 seconds back to bridge having ditched Sarabia and Geschke with the others dropping back to the second pack.
They now approach the final climb of Seskin Hill we still have this 3 man breakaway some 50 second to a minute clear. The favoured riders in the chase group (Mendes, Bole, Tiernan-Locke, Wyss, Duggan, Gaimon, Kolobnev, Selander, Marentes) will be revving up their engines the break should make a good target.
Boivin from the break attacks the other two just before the climb however.
He crosses the river on the approach, could he be the sensation of the day and hold off everyone over the climb? If he does so he just has the descent to the finish one he will know well by now.
They move onto the climb and as it starts to bite, here comes Tiernan-Locke again with Wyss and Selender feeling the Brit is the right wheel to follow.
He bridges across to Matteau and Kilun with Boivin still 20 seconds ahead.
Wyss and Selander also get across with Mendes and Gaimon scrambling across also.
Kolobnev and Duggan have also powered away from the big chase group nothing from Bole though.
Up front the favourites may have bridged to Kilun and Mattaeu but what about Boivin, well the Canadian has survived the climb and is now on the descent still in the solo lead!
Wyss however is not done with this race and is attacking on the descent now with JTL and Selander on his wheel.
The Brit and the American stuggle to keep with the Swiss.
Gaimon jusy missed JTL's attack on Seskin and after taking a breather also goes in pursuit of the the trio of chasers. Absolutely nothing left from Mendes who is just sitting behind former breakaways Kilun and Matteau with Kolobnev and Duggan chasing behind.
3km out and still Boivin leads but Wyss, JtL, Selender are close with Gaimon also closing.
50 seconds back Kolobnev and Duggun take charge of the chase with Kilun, Matteau and Mendes.
A minute further back is the Bole, Marentes group led by these two - surely a case of needing to go on Seskin for these two. Geschke and Haas have managed to catch this group far too late to make the high places however. Geschke does have at least have teammate Boivin forward.
2km out and Wyss and JtL have caught and passed Boivin - close for Boivin but now has he any strength for this downhill sprint?
JtL has recovered to challenge Wyss here and both look really strong as they come quickly to the last kilometre.
Selander and Gaimon are struggling to get up to these two and even overtake Boivin. Selander in particular who seems to have burned all his matches.
JtL meanwhile has something left has he holds off Wyss coming into the finishing straight.
... and a fine win for the Brit who along with Wyss was clearly the strongest today.
They left it late to catch the break but hard to argue with the tactics when he takes the win. Wyss had numbers with him all day and had the strength to attack on that downhill reeling in Boivin perhaps putting a bit too much into that.
Gaimon confirms his San Cristobal result with third place here, impressive consistency from the American. He just missed that JtL move on Seskin and couldn't quite challenge for the win.
Boivin pips Selander for 4th, what a ride in the break for Boivin and indeed his fellow breakaways who will also finish in the top 10. Selander was not rated as a top favourite but rode well to make the critical move and with Kilun also in the top 10 this is a good day for the Minion supporters.
Kolobnev and Duggan flash past before Mendes comes home.
These hilly races proving complicated for Bank of Ireland who caused the big split but then could not capatilise Mendes only good enough to follow the moves on the uphill.
Nordeus pair Dall'Antonia and Bole lead the rest of the front group over in 11th and 12th. Having made the lead group neither could make the move out on the road when the race was on.
Geschke and Haas could not make it too the front to sprint and finish 26th and 23rd respectively a bad day for these two caught well out of position on the penultimate Seskin ascent.
Those last two climbs of Seskin proved the decisive part of todays race withe Bank of Ireland causing a split with several favourites missing out. However having made the split the numbers game did not pay off with JTL making the big move on the last climb and then worked with Wyss to reel in the last breakaway rider before winning the sprint against the Swiss to take this classic win.
