TTT day. The top 12 teams get a time bonus today while the rest of the 70 or 80 teams just maintain their time, no time losses. Our goal is to finish as high as possible and possibly take some time from the leader for Max.

6 riders start and the time is taken off of the third rider at the finish. Again, I’m pretty nervous. One of the recruits placed third yesterday in the medio-Giro (the shorter version of the race). One of the other guys is on a full time-trial rig and I know that Max won’t put anyone on his team that he doesn’t think is fast. Continue reading →

The Mountain Day is today! This was our only day that had a remote start. We drove 60k’s to a mountain town and then started out on a single road that, after 5k’s of slight up-hill, had a 10k descent to the bottom of the first climb, a 12k monster that started a loop to the coast with three more significant climbs, including the same 10k back to the start/finish line. We climbed 5,800 feet in only 97 kilometers today, all up and down, hardly any flat at all. Continue reading →

We woke up to very strong winds and cloudy skies. The rain was supposed to hold off until later in the day. This was the shortest mass-start race of the week at only 40k. Since the overall General Classification was over (42nd place for me out of 241), we raced in age groups today. Both the Medio and Longo racers started together starting at 10 minute intervals. A few riders apparently decided against braving the 30-40 mph winds and our group was probably 50 or so. Bill reminded me that I was one of the strongest riders in my group and I’d be the one putting the hurt on the group today. That gave me a bit of confidence as I knew that he was right. Continue reading →