May 2/08 10:10 am - Tour of the Gila

Posted by Editoress on 05/2/08
 

The Canadians are having a great week in New Mexico so far. The vicious wind that has affected the last two stages has let up today just in time for today's TT starting with the pro men at 9am.

Team Symmetrics' Will Routley has an entry in his blog about the first 2 days of racing.

Yesterday was stage one, a 154km road stage with a pretty large mountain top finish. Needles to say it is a crucial stage for the overall, as anyone with GC hopes has to have a good ride.

My plan was to sit tight all day, fight for a good position coming into the final kilometers before the climb, then ride my own steady pace for the last 8km‚s, the steepest part of the mountain. This is exactly what I did, except that early on in the stage I got a flat, and it took 2.5 minutes to get a new wheel. The whole caravan had gone by at this point and I was so far behind the pack that I was pretty sure I was out of the race for the whole week. I put in a really hard effort trying to get back on. Unfortunately I had to use a bit too much energy to get back in the race, but was able to recover enough to feel good on the finishing climb.

To read the rest of the blog go to www.willbikes.com