Arrival to Tobago and Stage 1

Yesterday I had a crazy travel day. I traveled with the junior I coach Reid Richesin. We were initially flying to Houston, then to Port of Spain, Triniday, then to Tobago. I arrived to GSP airport an hour early for my flight, and the United Airlines employees would not let Reid's bags go through to the flight. They bumped Reid to a flight that went through Chicago to Houston. I arrived to my flight to Houston ten minutes before it was supposed to leave and the door was shut. Then I was bumped to that Chicago flight as well. Reid showed up through security about 2 minutes before the Chicago flight and we both made that flight. I was on standby in Chicago and made it through on the flight to Houston. From there all the flights went smoothly, and we arrived in Tobago at our scheduled time.

This morning we slept well and went to the beach for 10 minutes before the race. The hotel is literally right on the beach. It is awesome! Today the stage today was a relatively flat 110km race where we did 10 laps on a circuit. It had a small hill that was't too steep and about 3 minutes long on the back of the course. The plan for the race was for our team to be aggressive and get in the break. This is the stage I won last year going into a break 15km in with one other rider. Over the first few laps we were aggressive. Matthieu, Oliver, and I made it into a bunch of moves. After 3 laps Oliver got into a promising move of 4 that was reeled back in after a lap. With 4 laps to go Matthieu got into a move with 2 other guys. He flew up the hill that time! This put us in a promising position late in the race. Leading into 2 laps to go the team that came second in the Classic last year lit the pace. I was distanced in a second group, but it looked like it would come back together. A little after this I front flatted, and it took about 3 minutes to change since the child locks were on in our team car. Also before the race the race director said if you draft a team car you will get disqualified. This means if you flat it is game over, so my day was done with 2 laps to go. Within the closing laps Matthieu's group was reeled back in and the race finished in a bunch sprint. Emile came in 6th or 7th place. Matthieu got a bunch of intermediate sprints and is leading the Sprint King competition.Tomorrow is a tough 4 lap 100 km circuit race with some big hills. It will be a fun one. Hopefully we can keep Matthieu's lead in the sprint competition and win the stage. I am bummed about the flat because I felt good today.