Paul Rouse: Irish cycling history was often more rough than smooth

Everyone knows what it is to cycle a bike up a hill. The burn of the lungs and the ache in legs is a glorious, painful expression of what it is to be alive. It is a feeling that connects adults to their childhood and is something that can be maintained throughout a life.

It is arguable that no sport has had quite an extraordinary history in this country as cycling. And a central partof that history is the RásTailteann. The Rás had been staged every year between 1953 and 2018, until it lapsed this year the organisershaving been unable to find a sponsor.