Tour de Panama Stage 5- The grand finale

Tour de Panama Stage 4- Extra wet edging to the limit..

Tour de Panama Stage 3 - War zone

Tour de Panama Stage 2 - Gravel... that was some bullshit.

Tour de Panama Stage 1 - Crash and chase

The 1st 2/3rds of the stage was the same as yesterday. These included the 2 intermediate sprints as well as the crash location we hit yesterday. Then the last 30km were rolling hills up to a final gravel section about 3km long to the finish. Jade was sitting in 6th place in U23 and only 4 seconds behind the leader after stage 1. So our goal was to get Jade a good result in the intermediate sprints for the bonus seconds, then position him well in the front when we hit that gravel section. Since we literally did the 1st part of the stage yesterday; we were prepared for the 1st intermediate sprint. The field was still all together at that point with Medellin shutting down breakaway attempts all day. Asa and I got Jade up to the front to keep things together for the sprint. It was difficult to control because the attacks kept coming. With about 2km from the sprint Jade followed an attack and told me to gap the field. I sat up, Asa rolled up and I told him to block. Senafront also seemed happy with the 3 guys off the front so they did not accelerate either. We effectively fanned out to deter attacks which worked out really well because Jade was able to get a really solid gap before the next attack came. He was able to stay away to the intermediate and took maximum points as well as a 3 second time bonus. Perfect! Now we just have to try again at the next intermediate sprint. I dropped back to recover a bit and even found some time to head back to the car to get a feed for the boys. As we started approaching the 2nd intermediate sprint we gradually made our push towards the front. This time there was a ton of interest from multiple teams at the front and it was super fast. Gabe and I lost Jade in the lead out and we had to drop back to try to get him. The Natural Greatness team out of Spain had the front strung out and once I got Jade on my wheel and started my sprint we were about 10 wheels back. We both stopped sprinting once we realized we had just passed the sprint point... Oops.. Completely missed that one. Unfortunately neither of us really knew where that one was because the massive crash from yesterday happened just a few km before that point and all of us were in emergency chase mode. But that's okay; we had to focus on getting Jade in good position for the gravel sector at the end of the race. I was feeling pretty spent after the 2nd intermediate sprint so I had to really back off and sit pretty far back in the peloton to recover. Once we got into the rolling hills things got pretty sketchy back there. I was involved in 2 almost crashes from people just moving to the side and colliding bars. The pressure was extremely high and we going up these climbs at over 600 watts over and over again just to stay in the field. I made my way back up to Jade with about 4 km to the gravel section and Gabe had already gone to the front and started pulling. I kept Jade in the top 10 wheels for as long as I could until the hills got really steep and I could no longer stay up there. It was about 1km to the start of the gravel. I was midpack when we hit the gravel and immediately pulled the parachute. That shit was rough and choppy as hell. My old ass and 25mm clincher tires could not handle this shit. There were a ton of people dropping chains and getting flats. I rode the gravel slow AF and still managed to shake my shifter hoods out of place on my bars. Finished safely and Jade was able to battle out the gravel section for 16th. Really good ride by him. Jade moves to 5th in U23 and with the intermediate sprint bonus seconds it puts him 34sec behind the leader. Tomorrow is the Queen stage with a summit finish...😬 Time to see if I packed my climbing legs..

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Randy Lee

Tour de Panama Stage 2 - Gravel... that was some bullshit.

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Tour de Panama Stage 5- The grand finale

Tour de Panama Stage 4- Extra wet edging to the limit..

Tour de Panama Stage 3 - War zone

Tour de Panama Stage 2 - Gravel... that was some bullshit.

Tour de Panama Stage 1 - Crash and chase

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