Well, looks like my TT went as mediocre as I thought it did. Fast enough for 100th place. Not last, but not flying. Slipped down the GC by 4 spots to 80th.
Tonight's criterium was awesome. 90 minutes of ripping around downtown Bend, OR with thousands of fans (3 deep around the course) going nuts. I think this is by far the best criterium I've ever done. It's amazing how many people come out to watch.
The rule at Cascade is that you have to make it through 30mins of the criterium or you're stage race is over. Get pulled before 90 mins and you get a pro-rated time and can continue with Stage 5. After 15 mins it felt like I'd done 30 mins of racing and I had vision of making it to 30 then calling it good. 30 came and went, I avoided a ton of crashes, some nastier than others. I had a frantic chase back on after a couple, weaving around a rider's head as he lay on the asphalt. Crazy! With 20mins of racing left I began working my way up through the group - Trust me, at 29-30mph (average) this is FAR from easy. Not many places to do it, and it's painful to do. I'd spent one lap moving up, the next lap recovering, then move up again and so forth. with 4 laps to go there was a crash on one of twisty sections where one rider went off the course into the bails, and another behind was riding with one foot clipped in... Not sure if someone hit the ground, maybe a Rock Racing guy, but that totally split up the group. I tried to chase back on but couldn't get back to the group I was in, so I sat up and tried to hook onto the chase group. No dice... Legs were done. With 2 laps to go I got pulled which sucked. Supposedly a lot of people got pulled, so maybe I hung in there for long enough to notch a few GC spots.
It was a little odd to be riding a criterium right beside Santiago Botero from Rock Racing, but it was also evident that he's not really used to the typical American criterium. Toyota-United and Health Net have criteriums pretty much nailed, but Rock Racing seem to have work to do. I guess most of their riders here are climbers, as their experienced crit riders such as Doug Ollerenshaw and Rahsaan Bahati aren't racing here.
Tomorrow's fun stage starts at 10 freakin' am, so it's time to go and get some sleep. Today has been a long day!
Below are a few pics taken by my team mate David Lelong.
Toyota United stringing out the pack during the final laps with Levi (current GC leader) in tow.
