To kick things off for the Tour de Korea they decided to start it off with a fast and flat 55K. A majority of the course was going to be on the expressway, although the first 10K was along a river which had 13 speed bumps. These speed bumps would have been fine, however it was raining this morning. They aren't your typical speed bumps, they were cobble speed bumps to begin with so the race people put thick rubber mats over them. They then became slippery and ended up taking out quite a few people.
Today the main objective was to just finish in the main group and not let anything get away. The team made a critical error early on by letting a break get up the road with 4 guys in it, which we had one of the 4. Not so critical at that point, then the guy in the break thought he heard us call him back on the radio and just slowed up and let them go. So instead of not having to worry about bringing the break back we got put into a situation to have to work to get it back. It had 2 guys from one of the stronger teams in the race in the break with a GC contender in the break. Instead of being able to take it easy and just mark people I ended up having to sit up front for about 15 mins with 2 other guys and work to pull the break back, eventually we got it back so no big deal.
With about 10K to go I really started concentrating on my positioning and made sure to stay up front in the first 10-15 people. With 3K to go we came off of the freeway and across a bridge. I then really focused on staying up front so I could possibly setup a leadout for our GC guy. At 2K our 2 teammates that were up front came off the front and I sat up there and kept the pace up for about 800m. Crazy thing is the only 2 signs I saw from 2K out was the 2K sign and then a 300m sign. With about 1K left I peeled off and just tailed off the back to try and avoid any craziness. I wasn't in a position to win or podium so there was no need to take any risks. I ended up with the main group and came out with no road rash or injuries so all in all a good day.
We had one teammate crack a frame and another fracture his femur, so team wise it was by far a good day. Not sure as of now where we are in Team GC, but it shouldn't matter much as there was no time gap. Stage 2 suits some of our riders a lot better than today did and we should be looking for a good day tomorrow.
Link to ride on Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/7158865
Stage 1 Placing: 70th out of 171 (Time Gap: 0:09) -Stage 1 Individual Results
Stage 1 Team Placing: 7th (Time Gap: 0:00)- Stage 1 Team Results
Stage 1 Map and Elevation
Signed in and ready to race! #126!
Getting the legs loosened up on Saturday. We are rolling in style this year!
The Harley Davidson truck which is transporting all of our bikes and gives us a dry and warm place to warmup. This was Saturday the day prior to the start at the host hotel. It was raining and all the teams were impressed with our setup, crap today at the race all the pro teams were in awwwwww at what we have.
The Team at the Welcome dinner. Rocking our Watts Hoodies and shirts.
When there is not an actual washer and dryer you have to improvise ;)
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