Today’s stage is probably considered the queen stage in the tour,

Achill island. Last year this was the stage that Thomas got away on and

put three minutes on our closest competition. This year we wanted to

increase the pressure on the British team and see if we could find

their cracks.

 

The race started off briskly but not all out when I got the call over

the rad, ” Hot Tubes, rear flat, number one.” That was Thomas. Thomas

seems to flat a lot in Ireland but, fortunately for us, he is calm as a

cucumber and very good at making it back to the bunch with no stress. I

did the wheel change fairly fast and Thomas was back in the bunch

before we got back to our caravan spot.

 

One rider from one of the smaller teams took a flyer and got a minute

quickly. He was over fifteen minutes down on GC so nobody seemed to

mind. The players were busy watching each other and making small moves

but nothing seemed to stick. After a bit, four guys got clear including

Jake King. He, by the way, is growing quickly as a racer here. He’s

making moves, working the proper amount and being a value to the team.

 

At this point in the race, everyone was having a go and Thomas was the

next one to get across and we had two. Hugh, for whatever reason, was

allowed to go unattended by our high GC guys. Cameron covered him but

was popped off on the first KOM of the day and hugh was off on his own

with a 2:20 gap to close on his own. This was good and bad for us. Bad

because he was 4th in GC and ahead on my guys in the break, we would be

obliged to sit on. The good part is that it was going to take a lot of

gas from Hugh to complete the move and it showed he’s inclined to panic

and we would try to use that against him. It’s a long stage and quite

hard and there was plenty of time for a sorting out.

 

On the climb I hear that Hugh is only forty-five seconds off the break

and a new break is forming containing four guys including Curtis and

Brendan. This was getting good for us. Hugh made it to the break and I

asked permission to go to the break from the chief Com, he said fine

and we were off. When I got there I could see that Thomas and Jake were

sitting on. I came up to talk and told them the obvious and they nodded

their understanding. Time to wait and watch. I hear that the second

group on the road was closing and a new group of three was forming,

this one included Colin. This was getting better all the time.

 

As the miles passed, we were getting updates from the race radio. The

two groups were not too far apart and I heard that Brendan dropped

back, after reading on the moto chalk board that Colin was in the group

behind. When he got there, he gassed it and brought the two groups

together and they quickly moved towards the lead group. While they were

doing their work crossing, one lone Irish lad mad a bid to go solo from

the lead group. He gained a minute but with 60 km to go, and a hard 60

at that, I was not concerned.

 

The group with Colin made contact with the front group and we set off

to do our work getting time on the yellow jersey. The yellow was full

of fight, as you would expect and kept the pressure on, with his team,

to limit their losses. We then hit the big cat 1 climb of the day and

we were asked to pull over and get behind the main bunch as the chief

Com wanted to control the cars mixed in with the riders.

 

After the climb, there was a long, hard, very cool decent and a clearer

picture of the race was becoming clear. The lead group of, maybe

seventeen, with five of our guys, had a minute and a half on the yellow

jersey group who were charging as hard as they could. The gap continued

to drop slowly as we were not willing to drag everyone along. We were

the yellow on the road but not by a lot over the passengers in the

break so it was more or less, a game of chicken with the other GC

hopefuls. With 20 km to go the yellow jersey group caught the break. I

was OK with this since our goal was not to tKe the yellow today but

just put stress on the tiring leaders team.

 

Just as I was thinking that two men took off, Ryan Mullan, the race

strong man and Curtis. This was a great move for us. Curtis was in

tenth place only a minute down on GC and Ryan, a huge engine, wanted

the stage win but down on GC would ride hard. They quickly got a good

gap when a second group of formed. This included seven riders with

Colin, Thomas and Jake, two Dutch riders, one Irish guy and one

American from the Specialized team. They worked well together knowing

this was it. Jake and Thomas throttled it with Colin to get as much

time as possible before the line. Brendan was masterful in his defense

of his team leaders position sitting on the yellow jersey chase group,

discouraging any consistent, organized pursuit.

 

In the end, Ryan won the stage with Curtis second, thirty seconds later

Colin’s group came in and 1:23 later the yellow jersey group. After all

the shuffling around, we are in the lead with Colin and Curtis is in

second and holding the white, young riders jersey. Thomas is in eighth

and Jake in tenth but less than half a minute from the top five.

 

We have our work cut out for us in the next two days but I think we are

ready.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Toby