That was a hard ass race. The fact that the break got FIVE minutes at one point is mind boggling to me. We howled through the first lap, the second lap was at least that fast (that's when the break went-ish), and then we finally had a pretty chill lap on the third, but even that deteriorated into a gutterfest in the last part of the lap. Lap Four was hard as shit and Lap Five even worse.

That break had some serious firepower.

I spent the day making sure our guy Daniel Ramsey was well placed going into the climb each lap. I did a fair job of it, and he started at the front pretty much every climb. On Lap Four, I rode next to the teams that were rotating on the front and made my own spot right next to them. It was the coolest thing I've ever done in a bike race. There were amazing bike racers ROTATING next to me! Ha. I promptly blew to pieces when the climb started, but that was fine by me. I went from top 10 to something like 150th on the climb. My group actually caught back on largely due to Henk Vogels I'd say. I was wrecked by then and dropped anchor when we hit the climb the final time.

I lost 11 minutes in the span of like 8 miles. HA.

The firepower here is no joke. I can't say it enough how amazed I am about that break. It's incredible. It was HARD in the field. People were coming off every lap, and there was a break up the road putting time INTO the field!

I just about fell over at sign in today when the Rock boys walked up...Botero, Hamilton, Pena, Freddie, and Sevilla... I mean, I've been editing pictures and articles about these guys for years, and here they are in the same race as me. That's pretty wild.