Well today was a pretty tough day, once again I got dropped from the main group. The neutral zone ended and the race started on a slight uphill and the pace picked right up. I couldn't get my butt up the small hill and found myself playing chase until the climb. The main group of about 40 riders just went up the hill at a very fast pace and I just tried to get up the hill picking off as many people as possible along the way. I made up some ground on some people along the way but on the descent I gave up all of that time and made my way down the mountain with just one other guy. We hit the flat and about 800M up the road was a group of 5 riders. It took us about 10K to pull them in and by that point we only had 8K to go. Behind us was a chase group that I figured would catch us if we didn't pick up the pace, so I took my fair amount of time up front pulling the group. If I can just get my butt over these climbs I would be in a lot better situation, it seems I am always playing catch now and working my tail off on the flats. The chase group never caught us and they were about 15 seconds back. I finally made a good decision when it came to the finish and I sat 3rd wheel in our group of 7 and with about 200m to go I came out of the saddle and sprinted away. It felt good to finally get the sprint down and know where I can go from, I think with a bigger group I would have to go from about 400m and see what happens. Although it was for a top 50 finish it was still good to out sprint some people.
It was not a great day for our team, well it had some positives and some negatives. We gave up quite a bit of time to the 2nd place team and now only lead by 41 seconds. But the positive thing was that we got our lead, Mr. Lee, into the Yellow Jersey and he has a 4 second lead. So we have been busting our tail to cover our overall team position, but now we will have to continue to do that and then cover for Mr. Lee and the Yellow Jersey. The next 3 days are going to be extremely tough, luckily tomorrow is a rest day!
Here are some pics from today:
Headed to the bus....
Mr. Lee takes the Yellow!
That little hill before the big one is where I got separated.
Yeah I think I might actually be gaining weight...........
The buffet line, it was long!
And then the famous Pink Panther singing to us on the way to the hotel, it was a 3K ride from the finish.
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