Yet another beautiful day in China. If it makes you feel any better, it was a little windy today. And I think I got a sunburn Hehehehe.
The race organizers have developed and annoying little habit lately of making us get up earlier than originally planned to travel to the next town. I’m usually an early riser anyway, but leaving early means we get to the race early. The last two days we’ve arrived at the start 2 hours before race time. 1 hour is fine. 1 1/2 hours is even OK, but 2 hours early is too much time. Especially since we had to get up at 6 am in order to get there 2 hours early.
The coolest thing that happened today,was that the local grade school let the kids out to come watch the race. There were around 300 kids (my best guess) sitting on the curb watching the start. Before that they wandered around the pit area and spoke all the English they knew. Which was “Hello… how are you…I love you” I brought a couple of Cadence cycling caps with me for just such an occasion and handed them out to the first 5 hands that I saw. They loved it!
The course today was 5 laps on a 23 km circuit. The action got started pretty early on. A guy from the Portuguese team went off the front at about the 5 km point and our man Chad Butts went with him followed by one other guy… from China, I think (but I’m not sure). None of these guys were much of a threat to challenge for the overall lead, so the Peloton let them go. At its best, the group gained a 1 minute advantage. It was definitely a long day for Chad. His group was able to stay out in front for four laps before the pack decided to reel them in. Just after the start of the 5th lap, they got caught. And to rub a handful of salt into that wound…just after Chad rejoined the field he flatted. We got his wheel changed, but he had to ride most of the last lap all by himself. The one saving grace to his effort was that he won 1 intermediate sprint and took 2-2nd place finishes. He gained some sprint points, but ended up losing like 6 minutes time to the leaders. Oh well, that’s bike racing. There were a lot of flats out there today. We were lucky and only had one, but I know of at least 2 guys who had 2 flats each. There were probably 15 punctures today. Chads was a staple, I dunno what the others were.
On a happier note, Vladimir took 6th in the finishing sprint and Alberto came in 18th. Overall we have 3 guys in the top 25 and we have looked very good all week. Only two days left, but I’m sure the guys will give it all they’ve got.
Sorry to be so short the last two days (yeah, I know, I’m short every day), but it has been a very long couple of days. I’m doing my best here, but I’ll have to expand on some of these stories after I get back. Thanks for reading!
