day 2 Ronde De L Isard

Today ranks up there as one of the harder days that I have ever had on a bike. I woke up a bit sore from yesterdays wreck and even though managed to escape without too much road rash, lots of bruising was to be had. Previewing what the day was going to be like, it appeared that today was pretty straightforward. It was supposed to be fairly flat and a little bit of wind. The race bible was predicting a 4.5 hour stage and we figured that this being a stage race, the team of the leader would control the festivities. Boy, were we wrong. We finished the race in 3 hours 55 minutes. The day was about as french as one could get, a breakaway never went in all of 175 kms and the day was non stop attacking. The team of the leader was even attacking themselves. Our director, Patrick Jonker, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Jonker, I suggest you check out the link, trust me, he knows his shit. Multiple tour de Frances and even winner of Australias Tour Down Under. He cannot figure out why the French are racing like they are and are riding like Juniors he says. Good news is that, we had 3 riders finish in the front group of 50 riders that separated on the days KOM climb. And yes, I was one of the 3. On a side

I am looking forward to tomorrows mountain stage, I have absolutely no idea how my legs are going to respond to these mountains, I have been living at sea level and have not ridden a mountain climb in about 4 months.

And on another note, after yesterdays wreck, I had numerous people come up and congratulate me on finishing yesterdays stage, especially in the front group as they thought I was a goner. I even spoke with the head UCI official here and he was quite worried about me after yesterday and he was glad to see nothing seriously wrong as he was got to watch me go flying. Pretty neat actually, especially given the fact that I spoke with him in French, hopefully that improves his opinions of American riders.