Today was the last day of the Tour of Arkansas, and the last chance for anyone to steal Chady's lead. Today we planned to go to the front and set a high enough tempo to discourage any dangerous breaks. So when we started I tried my best to get right up the front. Only problem was that my legs were so damn tired from 3 days of hard riding that I rode as hard and fast as I could but kept going backwards. It was only about 10min before the call to pull out came. Gutted.
Luckily the team was ridiculously strong and even without me the boys kept the race together. A break did get away, but there were no dangers to GC in it. With Kobza smashing it on the front the other GC hopefuls had no chance. The team (except for me) rode such a strong tempo that the field was whittled down to about 1/3 of starters and Chady took the overall.
So how did I feel after my first stage race with the team? I guess I felt pretty good. Initially after the crit, or after my 10min in the crit, I was disappointed. When you want to help out the race leader, but just don't have the legs, it's disappointing. But I'm still adapting to this level of racing, and given why I had no energy/speed today made me feel a lot better. I was quite nervous before the start of stage 1, and still nervous when Chady had a lead that needed to be defended. But I had a great team of experienced riders around me who showed me how I could be of the biggest help to the team. Thanks guys. And thanks chady for getting the results.
Below is a picture of the team train in action, yea.
1 comments:
nice write ups bro, nice blog
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