In the first 60k of the race I was staying at the front throwing
out attacks and chasing attacks with my teammates while trying to get food
down. Unfortunately nothing that I went for or instigated stayed away and for
my teammates it was the same.
Once we hit the short circuits, my teammate Jonny Brown told me that
there was a break up the road that needed to be chased back since we didn't
have any teammates in it. So for about half a lap, we worked at the front to
bridge the gap. Once we were three quarters of the way through the loop, I gave
one last huge effort to do what I could to bridge the gap. Once I finally got
out of the wind, about five guys on Team Avia hit the front to bridge the rest
of the gap, and in the process strung the field out and put me in the box, but
fortunately I was able to hold my spot and stay in the lead group.
With the race all together now, I tried my best to stay out of the wind
for the rest of the race, but even when I'm in the slipstream of the peloton, I
still had to put major efforts in to hold position.
During the final lap, everyone started to do everything they could to
get to the front. So that means about 150 riders are cutting each other off and
attacking from the outside on very narrow European roads. This all resulted in
two huge crashes which I fortunately was able to escape without losing any
skin. But the second crash which was 1.5k from the finish was across the whole
road which forced me to jump off my bike after almost going over my handle bars
and hop over a few riders and thrashed bikes.
Overall, it was a good day, no one from USA went to the hospital
and I learned so much. The final stage is tomorrow (120k road race) and will
most likely be even more aggressive than today. Let's go!
Neilson
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