kicked my ass.
First two days were some of the most awful I've had on a bike.
Day 1: Fast opening flat section in the rain. Big crash on some train tracks, a bunch of us had to dismount and walk over. They were so slick I watched someone fall walking over them. 3 of our guys made a 30 man split while Carter Jones and I were in the peleoton. I was feeling good then on a fast descent in the rain my body froze up on me and I got realy cold. The next climb I just couldn't go and got popped. Dieseled past a few other guys that were dropped and rode 30k mostly uphill solo.
Day 2: Made sure to dress a lot more warmly. Two koms early that I made it over with the leaders. Felt really good. Then proceeded to get dropped on the sketchy ass descent. Chris Monteleone, Carter and I helped chase and everything came back together. I still felt awesome. At 75k I missed the first feed but didn't worry because the second one was at 90k. Well, that one never appeared and I completely melted down due to dehydration and trying to race 90 miles on 2 bottles. The finishing 18k climb was the most painful thing I've done in my entire life. I was seriously incoherent for a while after finishing.
Day 3: Way, way better. Not as good as I should be riding, but better. Road conservative all day and just focused on eating and drinking. On the first 15k I hung with the lead group as everything exploded until about 5k to go, when I blew. Not many guys left at that point. A group of 8 formed and we road tempo for a long time after the descent. Right before the second climb another group caught us. The second climb was absolutely brutal and 6 of us made it over the top together. We descended into Chambery, where the finish was. We were supposed to do a circuit in town but the leaders were about to come around so we were pulled and our numbers were written down. Not sure on the finish place but pretty good I think, only 20ish guys even did the circuit.
Anyway, this race was the hardest I've done. Devo teams from Quick Step, Credit Agricole, Agritubel and AG2R were there. The climbs were huge and the weather nasty. I'm happy I got through it and had a good last day, the first two were seriously terrible. I have a lot to learn racing over here. For me, putting out the watts is never the problem, or at least the first problem. I just have trouble with the technical aspects like pack dynamics, descending, taking feeds, fueling enough, etc. I think that will come with more experience though.
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Sounds like you're having at least a LITTLE fun. If you didn't hear, some idiot crashed in front of me with 10 minutes to go in the stage 3 crit of tour of atlanta and i cracked my handlebars in half.
Then on the stage 5 road race I attacked with about 20 miles to go, took the last KOM, a kudzu cyclist bridged up and we worked together for about 5 miles until my entire lower body froze up from cramps. I rode back to the finish in the back of a cop car.
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