It is a widely-accepted feature of cycling that, despite the tireless work of peloton’s the domestiques, only the winners get remembered in the history books.

It is the focus of ex-British pro Charly Wegelius’ autobiography and his is a path well-trodden, but despite the perceived thankless nature of their task it is still a wrench to walk away from a career you have worked so hard to earn.

Irish pro Ronan Mc Laughlin was faced with the same decision in the winter, with a six-year stint at Sean Kelly’s An Post-Chain Reaction team coming to an end.

Offers from elsewhere were on the table, but McLaughlin instead opted to return home to Donegal, where he now coaches for Dig Deep Coaching and races for his local amateur team.

And, while he admits there are parts of the professional lifestyle he misses, he told RCUK there are no regrets about opting to take on a new career path.

“It’s a change, but it’s been a nice change,” he said. “Obviously there are some parts of being a full-time bike rider that I miss but at the same time I’m happy with where I am now and things are going well.

“I’m involved in coaching now so it’s all good. I can’t complain. I’m still racing at home a lot too so that’s nice.

“One of the difficult bits was at the start of the year, when you see all the guys going away to training camps and then you see the results of races you used to enjoy doing come up.

“But then you see the results of races you didn’t enjoy and you’re thinking, ‘thank God I wasn’t there’.

“It’s like when I was full-time – there are good points and bad points.”

Mc Laughlin’s career included several appearances at An Post Ras, while he also raced three consecutive Tours of Britain between 2010 and 2012.

He was also selected to ride for Ireland at two World Championships, and enjoyed top-ten finishes at the Irish national championships against the likes of WorldTour pros Nicolas Roche and Matt Brammeier.

And looking back on his career, Mc Laughlin, 27, insists he has plenty of good memories to look back on.

“I think my career was decent enough,” he said. “The goal always was to move on to a bigger team and to win some big races, which never quite happened.

“But at the same time, the fact I was kept on the team for six years and trusted that way, and had a good reputation as a hard-worker and serious professional athlete – those are big positives.

“Obviously there are some of the performances I did too, and getting selected for Ireland for the World Championships are all highlights of it as well.

“To say I wouldn’t change anything would be wrong – as you learn as a cyclist, as you learn how to train properly, you always think, God I wish I could have done that from the start but it’s not possible because you do everything through the learning process.

“I’ve loved every minute of it and there are no regrets.”

Despite their Irish sponsor, and Sean Kelly’s backing, An Post-Chain Reaction are based out in Belgium with time trial ace Ryan Mullen and British track star Owain Doull in their current squad.

And Mc Laughlin admits the difference in the British and Irish set-ups compared with those of Belgium is vast – even if the gap is starting to be bridged.

Reflecting on his time in Belgium, Mc Laughlin admitted the move was hugely beneficial in his development as a cyclist – though the training roads of his home county were irreplaceable.

“In Belgium, cycling is of course one of the national sports – there’s probably just football it’s second too,” he said.

“It’s so important there, and it is quite different to what we have here in Ireland and Britain. It’s just strange – you could be racing every day of the week, and in the first year or two you are there you are tempted to just race every day because it’s fantastic.

“But one of the things I struggled with there was always getting decent training done because we were based near Brussels and it was quite built-up. You usually had to travel if you wanted to get any decent training done.

“I used to come home to Donegal and Ulster quite a lot for training camps so to speak. As for racing though, Belgium is fantastic.”

Moving out to France or Belgium is a path well-trodden for many of Britain and Ireland’s leading riders, and certainly those who turned professional in the pre-Team Sky days.

Sir Bradley Wiggins’ career started with Francaise des Jeux, David Millar was at Cofidis while Mark Cavendish started with the German-based T-Mobile Team.

But Mc Laughlin believes Belgium is the ideal base for a rider due its central location to many high-profile races.

He explained: “Obviously there’s so much going on and you are very central and close to much of the other races in Europe too.

“As far as cycling is concerned it’s great. It’s great for the Irish, English and other British riders too because if you go to France there’s a lot of travelling involved – you could be travelling 10, 12 hours of a morning just to get to a race.

“In Belgium the furthest you ever seem to travel is an hour and a half. The people are great too, and the fact they’ve got English TV and all – it helps.”

Since first leaving for Belgium however, at which point he admits Irish cycling was far behind in terms of developing riders, Mc Laughlin believes the sport has really taken off in his home country too.

While successful Irish cyclists are not exactly a rarity – Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche being the most notable riders to have heralded from the emerald isle – the sport is now undergoing rapid growth over the Irish Sea.

Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp), Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Sam Bennett (Team NetApp-Endura) are among their current crop of stars, while former Omega Pharma-Quickstep man Matt Brammeier, now at Synergy Baku in Azerbaijan, is national champion.

And McLaughlin hopes success at the top level can be repeated at grassroots level in Ireland – with the growth of British domestic cycling a model to follow.

“I think cycling in general has really taken off in Ireland,” he said. “It’s obviously not at the same level it is in Belgium, but it’s definitely one of the fastest growing sports here.

“It’s just going to take a while to develop I think. If you look at the development in Britain over the last ten, 12 years – when I started cycling is was just the Premier Calendar in Britain, it was big but nothing like now.

“Hopefully we can start making that sort of trend in Ireland too.”

One huge pull, of course, for Irish cycling will be the arrival of the Giro d’Italia next month, with Belfast set to host the Grande Partenza on Friday May 9.

And Mc Laughlin says the Northern Irish capital is starting to develop Giro fever as the big day draws ever nearer.

He said: “The Giro d’Italia is massive – everywhere you go it’s massive, more so in Northern Ireland but the Republic are catching up.

“It’s just Giro d’Italia mad now when you go to Belfast. The taxis are pink, when you go to the cinema there are ads on about the Giro coming.

“Everyone knows it’s coming and just from that side of it, I think it will lead to a lot of people taking up cycling and a lot more interest being shown in it too.

“I think it’s fantastic. They have a really nice route for it too – up to the coast and then through Belfast for the end and then down to Dublin on the third day.”

Part of the celebrations for the Giro include the newly-launched Curadmir sportive, a punishing 360-mile, three-day slog through Ireland’s rugged landscape.

And Mc Laughlin has had his own small part to play in the event, which will be partly ridden on some of his preferred training routes.

He shared some top tips with RCUK about riding multi-day sportives and hopes the event will prove to be another important date on the Irish cycling calendar.

“The second stage, I know all those roads,” he explained. “It definitely looks like a really nice event.

“I’m riding the An Post Ras that week but otherwise I would have been very tempted to do it. It’s a challenge. It’s something new and exciting.

“It’s not just a short 50 or 60 miles and then a stay in a hotel overnight. It’s different, a nice approach to it. Riding at that time we should get really nice weather and it could really be one of the events of the year.”

Taking place over the bank holiday weekend of the 24th-26th May, Curadmir is a fully supported cycling sportive covering 360 miles in three days, through some of the wildest and most remote terrain in Ulster. For more information, please visit: http://www.curadmir.com/