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Neil Shirley Diary Tour De Beauce – Stage 4a & 4b
6/14/08 - Double days are like paying taxes; you have to do it but no one likes it. With a 20-kilometer time trial over rolling terrain in the morning and then a 60-kilometer criterium in the evening it makes for a long day. At least I was able to get in two naps, one before lunch and then another one after lunch.
Since I’m so far out of the overall I didn’t have any pressure on me in the TT. I just had to make sure I made the time cut, but that wasn’t a problem. We were hoping that Ben Kneller would have a good ride. He’s the best time trialist on the team right now and coming off of a top-10 in the TT at Mt Hood we knew he had a good shot. But, the race is taking its toll on him and he posted a top-25. I know he was disappointed since it was a course he should go well on but after three hard road stages you don’t know how your legs will react to the effort. Svein Tuft of Symmetrics won the TT by over 40 seconds and took the leaders jersey from Tecos.
We all headed back to the hotel to eat and recover for the evening crit. I put my feet up and watched the Simpson’s in French. I’m easily entertained! I dozed off waiting for lunch, had lunch and then went back to bed for another hour. Before I knew it, it was time to pull on the chamois and pin the numbers. Motivation for racing in the evening is never really high for me but I did my best. After a cup of Jittery Joe’s I was keyed up for the crit.
I lined up at the front of the crit knowing that a break would go early. I was right; the first move went away on the first lap. We had Hartley in the move but Symmetrics wasn’t happy with it so they brought it back. As it reshuffled I got in the next move with five others but that only lasted two laps. Evan Elken was the next to go with a move and this time it was the right one. The group of ten had just about all the big teams represented except for Amore & Vita. Amore & Vita went to the front for five laps and tried to bring down the gap before trying to launch a rider across to the break. But, it was too little too late. Coming into the last few laps the break was playing cat and mouse. Evan pulled through for a turn and realized that no one had followed him so he took off. With the other riders from the break just watching each other Evan rode away solo the last lap and a half to take a huge win for him and the team. He even had plenty of time for a victory salute. Evan has been riding well all week so it’s great to see it come together for him.
Now we need to take the momentum from the crit into the final two days. Saturday is a 90-mile circuit race with a really tough 1-mile climb per lap. Symmetrics will have their work cut out for them defending on Saturdays course. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks for reading!
