Tour de 'Toona - Stage 2

Saturday was a new day though, and also the toughest day of Tour. 76 miles over 3 tough climbs. Now this was more my style! We rolled for about 35 miles before hitting the first climb: Blue Knob. Keith and John did an awesome job of helping to control the pack on the flats so that Brady and I could just hang out and conserve our energy for the climb. They were all over the front controlling things; it was awesome to watch! When it was time, Keith rolled back and grabbed Brady and I and we started making our way up to the front. When we made the right-hand turn to start the climb I was sitting 10th wheel. And then all hell broke loose.

Immediately the pack tore apart into pieces by the pace being set at the base of the climb. We were only about a half mile into a 4 mile climb and people were already on the attack. Two or three guys shot off the front and the pace picked up some more, reducing our group to about 10 guys. I kept my cool and just ramped up my pace a little bit more to keep those guys in sight; I figured they were just going for KOM points and we would come back together at the top. At the same time, increasing my pace kept anyone else from wanting to attack as well. Sure enough at the top we came back together and our group of about 15 started rolling down the other side of the mountain. Our pace was pretty slow though, so groups that fell off the pace on the climb kept catching back up to us and our group quickly grew to 40+!

At this point Brady had enough and went off the front with 4 other guys. They immediately got a gap and my role switched to covering the attacks of people trying to bridge in order to keep Brady away. This tactic worked and Brady's group got about a minute on the field and held it to the end; Brady finished 4th on the day, which put him in a good GC position. I came in with the next group, which was still pretty big, and "sprinted" for 14th. Overall a good day for the team!