Well I knew the back to back hard days would eventually catch up to me, and today was the day. It was alright though I knew today was going to be tough so I helped the team out all the way until the base of the climb. It was 50k and I did a decent amount of work throughout that and then just went up the climb. There was a 20k section between the 2 climbs where I was hoping the group would come back together. Our GC rider attacked after the first climb and put 1'30" into the first group. So that drove the first group to chase him with 3 guys from the 1st place team who are all within 30secs of the GC. I was back in the 2nd main group and we weren't able to catch the main group. I just sat in and let a team that was in 5th in the GC and only had 2 guys up the road do the work (Your top 3 riders count for each stage for the Team GC), so they had 3 guys in our group doing a majority of the work.
I just took it easy and sat in for the last 30k and made sure to avoid any craziness. I caught some wheels at about 2k to go and stayed with them but with about 1k some other guys came around, I got on there wheels and then when the group came together with 500 to go I just pulled off. There isn't a point for me to be sprinting for 33rd place and risk getting tangled in some non sense. Our group ended up 5 minutes down, but no big deal as I am not in the GC due to missing Stages 2-4.
Now for our team, they had a great day and our GC rider stayed away after the climbs until 20k left. He then managed to find his way to the finish line and win the stage. That gave him a 10 second bonus, which puts him 11 seconds ahead and in the yellow jersey. Elmer won the KOM for the Tour de Korea since there is no KOM tomorrow and JY still holds the Sprint, Best Young Rider, and Yellow Jersey.
Tomorrow is going to be a crazy 48k of mayhem, but I am looking forward to showing up and doing what needs to be done to protect the Yellow Jersey for JY and to hopefully help him get the sprint points as well. All I can say is it is going to be a crazy one, and hopefully we can all come out with no injuries.
Link to ride on Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/7478791
Stage 7 Placing: 62nd out of 155 (Time Gap: 5:08) -Stage 7 Individual Results
Stage 7 Team Placing: 2nd (Time Gap: 0:00)- Stage 7 Team Results
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