Stage 2: Tour De France

Stage 2: Javo helping me with my gears.

Today is my second stage and I already realized that “this was the hardest stage” is a phrase I would have to keep saying. But on that note, I have decided to eliminate it all together from my vocabulary. Otherwise it becomes redundant.

Today was a true test though. We had car issues we had to deal with in the morning so we started at 2pm. This is for a stage of over 130 miles and 10,000+ ft of climbing. The good thing that came of it is we found the Ineos Grenadier hotel. Lets just say it looks like a well oiled machine. While we have a small camping car serving as a bedroom, kitchen and living room all at one, professional teams have a whole bus that’s a kitchen.

Anyway, the 2nd stage went through the Basque Country. After watching a number of races through this region while training, I was delighted to finally be riding in it myself. Its just beautiful. Lots of flats with insane winds and plenty of climbs. The last climb was 5 miles and 5 mile drop. This is the kind of descent I would like to see Tom Pidcock descend on a dry day.

With rain towards the end, starting at 2pm meant we finished at just past midnight. Going downhill for 5 miles in darkness was made even more nerve wrecking by the cow that chased us for a bit.

And if you can believe it at that time of the night, the TDF organizers were still out there working - in the rain, putting up the rails and panels we all see on tv. It really made me wonder about the cost of the sport we love.

The sad/interesting thing is that it gets worse. By the time we made it to the finish, the podiums were not yet setup like in stage one. That means, working overnight to get the job done. As I type this, it’s 2am here and on an hour drive to the start of the 3rd stage.

All I can is wish us luck…the good news is that as a team, we are getting better at managing responsibilities.