Stage 3: Three Amigos

After our excursions post race yesterday, we figured that we would be better off trying to eat some local fare in leiu of slamming 8 of us in car and driving to the UCI dinner. Thankfully the dinner was right across from our hotel and was amazing. Also they provided an excellent breakfast to fuel the beast. We had no issues making it to the start and enjoyed a nice neutral start of the days’ stage.

Eventually someone was going to attack and as the break started to form, I figured why not. My legs are good, and Im not a GC threat now, I can go for broke. So I start going across and took 3 riders with me and the Mega-Kazak team decided we were not going across. So A for effort, we stayed at the front and avoided any dangerous roads and tried our utmost to not crash. Prior to hitting the 100km mark in the stage, I noticed my rear tire was getting soft and had a good spot for a wheel change, no issues other than the wheel not shifting great. So I began making my way up the caravan and BOOM. I am on the ground at 60km/h.

What the hell just happened? Well after taking a minute, hit a hole in the road as I was coming beside a car, and my wheel touched the car. No chance on that one. So I slid into the grass off the road, really couldn’t say anything to the race medical, because I racked myself super hard and really couldn’t think. After a few minutes, I got some makeshift gauze and solution put on and hit the road. I thought maybe for a second I could get back to the group, but realized it was probably not going to happen. At worst with a 10% time cut, the worst I could lose was 40 minutes.

So this made it into an 80km time trial. Thankfully it was mainly a cross and tail wind because I rode a massive gear trying to not lose time. The race official on the scooter was also somewhat motivating me telling me that if I didn’t ride harder, I would come in outside the time limit.

As the km’s ticked down I was more than happy to see 2km left and I caught a few riders who were rolling in, I continued my death feared pacing trying to not lose any more time. I come in, teams in and I don’t see the car. Not usually a good sign, after trying to find the race medic, I see Victor Ayala riding in with is handle bars in pieces and looking as if he was thrown out of a moving vehicle. At the car, I see Christian Parrett, who only came in a minute before me with 4 flats on the stage.

After seeing official results, I only lost 15 minutes to the group and my teammates wondering how I rode that hard solo. Finally after an extra 20km spin to the hotel, I had a less than pleasant shower and also a wonderful Betadine session from our Mechanic Joel since the majority of my buttcheek had road rash.

Tomorrow is another fight and hopefully a turn of luck for our team. A night of lots of advil and a massage should make it doable