5 May 2006


After a poor performance in Stage 3 I was concerned about stage 4. The 170 km route consisted of two cat. 1 climbs, and one cat. 2 climb in the first 80 km. If they drilled it early and you were dropped, you weren't coming back. Noel suggested we try and get in the break before the climb, but what we didn't know was the hour before we hit the base of the first climb was like a crit! Twisty narrow roads and a super fast pace didn't allow any time for moving up. Luckily Keith managed to bridge to the move after Noel reminded us over the radio we were suppose to be up there.

This was a good situation for us, since Keith was our highest placed rider on GC, but still almost 2 minutes back on the leader, and thus no immediate threat. The Ukrainians again hit the front, along with some other “friends.” This kept things smooth over all of the climbs which made it easy for me. We had one super sketchy descent because it was narrow, damp and covered with moss. Then we hit the next big climb. We lost Todd and Chad here, so I was the only guy left in the peloton going down the last cat. 1. Keith was still up the road. On this descent it was POURING, and slick as ice. We were still chasing after the break though so we were flying. I had to take risks to close gaps left by less confident riders in front of me. Every once and a while I would know there was a particularly slick corner coming up because I would see through the fog one of the baby-blue Ukraine jerseys slid straight into the bushes while the others teetered around the bend at 45 kph. Finally we hit the valley, and wouldn't you know it, there the sun was. At this point I was shivering so bad I was about to fall off my bike.

However on the descent one of the Russians had gone kamikaze and went across to the break. He was only 17 seconds down on GC. The break was doomed. The chase picked up to full steam and we caught them right as we hit the base of the cat. 3 climb. I had been fighting to get to the front of this group so I could hopefully follow any counter moves, but we were all strung out in the long headwind section chasing them down. Moving up just a few spots required huge amounts of energy. When we hit the base of the climb the pack follow their standard operating procedure and drilled if for a few minutes. This is the area in which I was having the most problems. A little gap opened between me and the pack and I couldn't close it. I held at the same distance behind the group for 500-600 meters before giving in to the pressure. It was frustrating, because they weren't going that hard in front of me. If I had only had the power to close that short gap I would have been fine. Keith was dropped too after an exhausting day out front.

The next day was a double stage, with a flat 115 km stage in the morning followed by an 11 km TT in the afternoon. The morning race was harder than expected because there were really strong cross winds, and the Dutch and Belgian teams tried to split it up. Only Keith and I made the front group. Again my lack of balls came in to play positioning for the sprint, but I came in 32nd. I was just happy I made all of the splits in the wind.

For the TT I didn't warm up a ton. The 4 days and 5 stages before had already done that for me. After a little time on the TT bike I went to the line. I just wanted to see how I could stack up against these guys. Noel followed me, and it was helpful because he could tell me when there was a corner coming up, and how sharp it was; thus I didn't have to rely on the course marshals who were talking with their friends and smoking a cigarette. I felt like I did a good ride. Not great, but a good, hard ride. A pretty good measuring tool. I came in 30th 1:15 down on the world champion. So I was reasonably happy, because I think there is still some room for improvement, but my ride was good enough ride to give me an indication of where I stand in a field like that.

The last stage was a pan flat 130 mile affair. Luckily the previous day's cross winds had disappeared making the race relatively easy. Although the race was easy in the pack we still rolled into the finishing town at an brisk 40 kmh+, but once we hit the 5 finishing circuits we got going really fast. The pace was consistently 50-60 kph. There was no getting away on the tight, fast, and technical circuit, even if your name is Dimitry Grabovsky. All you could do was think about the sprint. I was in pretty good position most of the laps, with 2 laps to go the crazy for the front grew worse. With one and half laps to go we went through a right hand corner where the road narrowed, and a collision in front of me caused me to clip out and lose positions. I was done. It was completely strung out the last lap at 60kph, so there was no moving up, especially no moving up the 60 places I needed to to be at the front. Luckily Todd managed to hold great position and come in for a good 20th place. Not a bad birthday present for the kid.

The bad news is on the way to the airport after the stage I came down with a fever. The entire way back to Izegem I had cold chills and body aches. Turns out it is bronchitis, AGAIN. So I'm already on the antibiotics, and was still feeling pretty shitty yesterday, but seem to have turned a corner today. I still have a few more days before the next race in Germany. We travel out on Monday.

Thanks for reading.

-Zach
 

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