April 19/07 10:05 am - Tour de Georgia: Stage 4 report, results & photos

Posted by Editoress on 04/19/07
 

Tour de Georgia Georgia USA

Coverage sponsored by: Maxxis

Photos by Jonathan Devich

Report by Amy Smolens


Today's stage was bound to be a sufferfest for most of the 113 riders who would start the 18.9 mile time trial. Before the race as I was driving the picturesque, yet sure to be painful, time trial course it was lined with fans. These fans are pretty smart - most of them were on the steep parts of the climbs so they could maximize their viewing of pro racers suffering - I even spotted guy in a jersey featuring a Maple Leaf! The crowds cheered their favourites on as they climbed their way from Chickamauga, Georgia to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

HealthNet's Ryder Hesjedal finished a very respectable 13th, 2:52 behind winner Levi Leipheimer, and I talked to him about his day:

AS: Tell me about the course.

RH: "It was ok. It was pretty hard, pretty windy and pretty straightforward in the first half to the main climb, then up that. Then once you were up on that plateau it was pretty windy up there, hard, kind of rolling terrain and a technical finish. So it was pretty hard, I had to be on it the whole time."

AS: 13th place against a star-studded field with guys like David Millar - are you satisfied with that result?

RH: "It was ok. I kind of had a little bit of a weird one. I did a pretty hard effort right from the beginning and then Levi who's started a minute behind me, caught me at the start of the climb. Normally that's a little discouraging but then I realized he was probably gonna be going a couple minutes faster than most, so I decided to go probably a bit too hard but I wanted to give an all-or-nothing ride and actually stayed with him the whole climb and really fought pretty hard in the first part of the top section, was holding him at probably about 20-30 seconds meaning I was about a minute and a half off the pace about halfway. And then at that point I just kinda, I don't know, I just kinda lost the fight and wasn't really super happy with the last 10k. Cause, you know, I wasn't defending a GC position and I could sense that I obviously wasn't gonna be running a top 5 type time trial position so you just have to have a certain sort of morale to really go that extra bit and looking ahead in the week now it's kind of an open race and I think just mentally I just kinda held back a bit and conceded myself in the last 10k and maybe gave up a little more time than I could have in normal circumstances. But all in all I think the result's solid but I think I probably could have given a bit more."

AS: HealthNet has 2 riders in the Top 10 - Jeff Louder in 4th and Tim Johnson in 8th - what are the team's goals and expectations tomorrow on the stage to Brasstown Bald and what can you do to help them?

RH: "Well we have quite an elaborate plan and I'm probably gonna hold those cards close to the chest right now. It's gonna be an important day so we'll just let things unfold and at the end of the day we can see how the plan went. There's not too much to talk about at the moment. (laughs.)"

AS: Yeah, that's true, what if the other teams read Canadian Cyclist, right?

RH: "(Laughs) Yeah. I haven't done it (the climb to Brasstown Bald) before. It's just the dynamic of the race is so unusual at the moment that I think anything can happen besides the GC fight and the GC fight's gonna be pretty tight so all in all it's just gonna be an epic day."

Guess who I ran into at the finish line after the race was over? Yup, the guy with the Maple Leaf jersey. I figured I'd ask him a few questions and find out his story. He was very excited to know that CanadianCyclist.com had a presence here at the Tour de Georgia and was, of course, happy to answer my questions:

AS: What's your name is and where are you from?

TO: "I'm Tom Omstead from Canmore, Alberta."

AS: What are you doing here from Canmore?

TO: "From Canmore I spent a little time in Ontario and then came down with some friends from the Leamington/Kingsville area of Ontario."

AS: So you're here just to watch the Tour de Georgia?

TO: "Yes we are. We just took some time off and are down here, we're riding the courses and watching the event and having a good time."

AS: Have you spoken to or gotten any pictures of Ryder Hesjedal or Charles Dionne?

TO: "Yeah, we've said hi to them and gotten some good photos, having a good time, eating some grits, some southern fried chicken, just having a blast."

AS: How much of the courses have you ridden?

TO: "Oh, I've ridden quite a bit. I do Ironman so I have to train quite a bit for that... We rode today's course and did a little time trial ourselves and we went back down to the midway point where it's really grueling because it's an uphill ride and we watched it from there. Saw the guys come by individually and at that point they're going pretty slow so you get a good look at them."

AS: Are you going to ride Brasstown Bald tomorrow?

TO: "Yes we are. We're going to ride up and down and up it again! So that's going to be a good one!"