Stage 5
Today’s stage was pretty straight forward really 50k false flats downhill 50k monster climbing 50k descending and 20k rolling to the finish for 172k in total.
Ha ha not really. The first 50k was run off in 55 minutes then it was climb time, It just went on and on and on from just under 2700m all the way up to 3880m, so the air was pretty thin. There’s no easy way up these climbs, just hang on for as long as you can whilst the big boys attack each other to bits, once the bunch blows to pieces get in a steady group and get to the finish. So pretty straight forward day really, after getting some bottles for the boys got in a bunch and got to the finish.
Stage 6
Today was 115k straight up then straight down. We went back over the mountain we came down the day before. I was climbing much better today and finished not to badly either which was good. Nothing really to report of note.
Stage 7
Today was the biggest stage of the tour with 5k of neutral parade riding and 214k of racing which made a grand total of 219k!!! Thankfully no mountains though it was rolling downhill out and rolling up hill home. After around 70k the break finally went and a couple of teams hopped on the front at around the 80-90k mark to keep it in check. The teams were, The Iranians who have the yellow jersey currently, my team Giant Asia Racing, Rock Racing put a guy upfront with us for awhile and Team Marco Polo had a man up there for a little while as well. Though the majority of the work was done by myself and team mate Alex Coutes and two Iranians. I told myself I was just going to keep lapping till I blew and then some. Well I think we were driving the front for close to 100k, and I definitely blew, Alex just kept making me drink coke to keep the sugar high and with around 40k left in the stage I was gone, David told me just to sit in the bunch and get to the finish. The final km was all up hill and I was hammered so could not be bothered trying to hang on for bunch time so I whipped a coke out of my back pocket cracked it open and saluted the crowed as I rolled the final 1000m - which they all loved!!
To make the day even better our team mate Steffan won the bunch kick and took 2nd place, unfortunately some one got away in the closing kilometres of the race
Josh
