Not a lot to report today.  Very long day today.  We finished with 2 laps of a 5 mile circuit.  The circuit had a very small hill that had the first KOM’s of the week so the KOM jersey was up for grabs.  Quite frankly, I was expecting more out of the hill.  It was pretty small, but Frank Pipp used what I am sure was some inside info, provided by his ex-manager Jeff Corbett who now works for the Tour, to get a jump on the field to grab the jersey.  Frank is a good pro so he will carry the jersey well.  The impressive move came right after when Oscar Sevilla hit out with Ted King on his wheel.  They got a good gap, or I should say Oscar got a good gap.  I used some veteran experience to get a perfect whip off the front of the field to tried and bridge across.  The move initially looked great, but I got half way and stalled.  I then looked foolish because I could not close the gap, but you can’t make it if you don’t try, I guess.  Anyway, King I don’t think took one pull, that I could see, but Sevilla was a motorbike holding off the field for most of the lap.  Very, very, very impressive on Sevilla’s part.

The first hour and half of the race was an attack fest and we at BMC tried to get into a workable group, but could not make it happen.  Finally Justin England, from Toyota, got away.  One of the Jelly Belly guys used the old “hey I am going to go ahead for a pee…errrrrr……psych…I have a gap now so I am going to attack” to eventually bridge across.  I mean if you can’t attack at 50 km/hr like everyone else you probably should not be attacking.  Justin was a threat, the other two guys were not, but High Road and Slipstream took up the chase and got them back about 30 km later.

There was a big crash inside the last km.  Three of our guys hit the deck.  I guess Jittery Joe’s guy threw it away and took about a dozen guys down.  It happens.

I am pretty tired and hungry so off to dinner I go.

See you tomorrow,

Havoc