I have little time to write this one before we head out for the last stage here, and I haven’t had enough coffee to follow Kevin’s last blog wit. (Is there ever enough coffee?) Guys are starting to feel exceptionally wrecked now, I fully enjoyed seeing their faces post-race 9 pm nap last night. Forget the time, I doubt they knew what country they were in. They did know how many Tinder matches they’re at however…

Stage 4 Crit went smooth, for us that is, as we were riding around crashes like in one of those meteor space-shuttle games. Kevin and Pete worked on they elbow calluses at head of the group while myself and Brandon kinda took it easy just riding the train behind frequently taking a free lap… Everyone finished safe, with Kevin scoring respectable 13th right right in the mix with Optum’s and Jamis’ trains.

Stage 5 160km Hilly Road Race.
It was an exciting stage for the Amateurs, as GC battle was only between Optum and Jamis teams, and everyone else 4+ minutes behind in GC it almost guaranteed that break will stick to the end. I was really hoping to get it as well, but so did the other half of the field and it took over an hour of constant attacks for something to actually gain any ground. I burned my match going into stiff headwind with the Belgian, and seeing the pack just reeling us in instead of riders bridging across knew I’d pay the price. At least it was nice to see Kevin go with the counter move, but I drifted to far back in the agony to be able to counter it when he got brought back. Of course that one time I was not near the front, the final move got away. Damn it. Optum took on the chase, but it never got really easy as the road turned in with the tailwind numerous hills… until we turned home into headwind and it started pouring. Felt like we started moving really slow shivering in the rain and heartrate bellow 100. I was wishing for a blanket, or at least the pace to pick up. Luckily my dreams materialized and coming into town there were fans giving away blankets and hot tea. Ok, maybe I was just hallucinating, but we did hit the final circuits and pace picked up as if a gun just went off for a crit. And crit it was, with something like 20 corners in 2 miles …in a pouring rain. Fortunately for me, unlike most other racers, I know that bicycles can lean on corners even when it’s wet out and I started to move up from 100th to into top 20 by passing guys in the corners with their brakes on as they whispered “wow how did you do that?!”…ok, there might have been some F-bombs in that sentence.

Woozy of circuit

Turned out the field blew apart behind in the these 4 circuit laps as we shrunk the breakaways lead by 2 minutes, but came up short 45s. Knowing that we weren’t catching the leaders my fight to keep right on the front subdued and I got swarmed a bit near the end and rolled in 26th.

Ok time’s up, my breakfast bowl is empty and I gotta run to pack my bags for the stage and ride home. See you soon.