Friday, September 18, 2015

Tour of Qinghai Lake Stage 11

Yesterday’s stage at the Tour of Qinghai Lake was the longest one at 240kms. Mike had his food poisoning come back again, so he was not able to start the stage. Nick started the stage with food poisoning. The goal of the days was once again to get Thomas in the breakaway to get mountains points. Like a couple days ago it was as if he had a rope tied to himself, and Adria would pull back anything with him in it immediately. The first hour of racing was bananas. Finally they let a break roll with Mattieu in it, but they never gave a big gap to the breakaway. The largest gap was 2-3 minutes. After 120kms we still saw Nick in the group, so I figured since he made it over the biggest climbs he was good. Over the final climb of the race the pace picked up in the last two kilometers and Evan, Kyle, and I were gapped off the front group. Kyle and I helped get Evan back to the group. After we began the descent down to the finish we could see factories and smoke in the air. I think the town where we finished is where things are “Made in China”. There were still about 40kms still to race. Amore e Vita took over the pace at the front of the peloton and dragged the break back with a few ks to go. Thomas and Kyle led out Evan for a solid 7th place finish while Gavazzi took yet another stage win. We learned at the finish that Nick had to pull over a few times with diarrhea, so he had to abandon after about 190kms. Making it 190kms with food poisoning seems pretty impressive to me. Kyle, Evan, and I all have head colds, but we got through the brunt of this race. There are only two flat circuit races left.
Here is a link to my ride on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/347891193

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