Stage 2: 36 mi road race. Started flatish, then went into some power climbs and descents that scared me almost to death. Well, first they nearly just killed me outright. Imagine the worst paved road you've ever seen, then picture it ten times worse, then take that and drop some bombs on it and scatter some sand around and you have the race course. And these guys were FLYING down the descents. I actually climbed with the leaders and got gapped on the downhills. Crazy. After the climbing there was maybe ten miles through towns with cars and dogs and people all over the course. I stayed with the front group and when someone attacked with a k to go I hopped on the first person to respond and ripped around with 300 meters to go to take a very satisfying stage win. Downhill tailwind sprints tend to favor the heaviest man in cycling :) It was a good win, plus the 10 second time bonus jumped me to 3rd place. An untimely puncture took erik out, and even though Daniele sacrificed his wheel, and erik chased like a madman, he still lost 26 seconds. Bummer.
Stage 4: 100k lollipop (shaped, Andy) course almost all rolling with a pretty good headwind for the last few miles. I had gotten a rubdown the night before and the legs actually felt pretty good. I spent most of the race marking the two guys ahead of me, when I should have been attacking my balls off. Its hard to put yourself out there when the other guys have 9 people each to support them. Oh well. I left it too late, giving a solid effort into the hedwind as the skies broke open, but I saw the whole field chasing and gave up. That's just stupid inexperience and a lack of radios. Sounded like the chasers were getting tired & I might have been able to stick it. Hindsight... Daniele attacked on the last roller and got a good gap with two others. When two trek went to chase I jumped accross to them and then went over the top, hoping to get ten seconds on the field and move up to 2nd place. I stayed away for 4th, but not by 10 seconds. Damn! BUT, Daniele played those boys like a fiddle and crushed them to take the stage win!
All in all a good trip to Trinidad. I got three 4ths and two wins, and came out 3rd in the GC, which is my best GC finish ever. As a team, we won 3 of the 5 races we entered(note that I'm not counting that one lap cluster#*@¤ as a race) Hopefully Exustar is impressed and I can go do some more international racing soon.
A quick note about the director, Roger. Maybe its because I've never been on a team with a director before, but he strikes me as one of the most knowledgeable and competent directors anywhere. He knew exactly how to play each race and I think we owe a great deal of our success to his wisdom. To do what we did with just 3 guys against strong teams of ten is impressive. Roger was awesome and I hope I get to ride for him again.
We finished racing, hit up the awards ceremony and then the team I'll be riding with at Tobago picked me up and whisked me off to Maracas beach. I raced against these guys this week and they're really cool. They're from Team Foundation and one of the guys, actually the guy who took second on the GC, is a Colombian national who's been living and racing in NY for 6 years. We chilled out on the beach, scoped the sites, swam and then topped it all off with some world famous bake & shark and stags (the manly beer of Trinidad)
Tomorrow we ride and chill before heading to Tobago Tuesday morning. But before riding and chilling comes clubbing. So I'm actually putting on pants in this hot island nation and stepping out with the rest of the team to see if we can't go get in a little trouble.
No comments:
Post a Comment