Not fast, not furious

So far I have watched Armageddon, Bad Boys, Speed, Con Air, Face Off, and The Rock, all for the first time and WOW they have not disappointed. Keep em comin

🤐

Arms are getting sore from pointing out all these potholes

Back in 2008, Vampire Weekend was definitely like, “dudes, the harpsichord is SO back.”

Pismo Beach - Ventura

Wind wind wind windy windy windy windy wind.

Today was on all day. On a steep kicker less than 20 minutes into the race, there was a field split in the crosswinds over the crest. The next 30 minutes would be spent in the chase group, with Trek-Segafredo trying to weld it back together for Richie Porte, who had been caught out.

A large break with strong riders less than 2 minutes down in GC then got up the road, which meant GC teams were forced to ride all day to keep it in control. 

Alex pulled off a Herculean feat to bridge across to the group to try and preserve his KOM Jersey. Did I mention former world champion, Peter Sagan, made the break? Another rider ended up taking the jersey, but just to make the effort itself was so impressive.

For the rest of the day, it was just on the pedals. As you can tell from the average speed of the day, the tailwind was very real today, so if Stage 2 was the hardest day by virtue of the course profile, today was the hardest day by virtue of the nature of racing. 

With strong tailwinds, the penalty for being on the front become significantly diminished. Those behind or near the back get very little draft, and are further subjected to the whiplash effect of accelerations in the peloton forcing you to sprint every other minute to stay attached to the group. With the peloton strung out, we quickly realized today where exactly our plot of real estate in a strung-out peloton is: the caboose. 

It’s actually pretty clearly delineated what the order of teams is when the peloton is stretched: GC WorldTour teams at the front; WorldTour teams working for a sprinter next in line followed by other WorldTour teams; then the Pro Conti teams in order of Cofidis, Israel Cycling Academy, Novo Nordisk, and Hagens Berman Axeon; then us. You don’t fight the order. You just accept it and figure out how best to deal with it.

Mike Creed has a great point later. In times like these, when you are properly in the box, and your body is not paying any of invoices you are sending it, you learn racecraft. You can’t rely on strength to bail you out, so you look elsewhere. Where can I go that it’ll hurt the least? It was actually quite valuable. 

I got popped nonetheless just after our loop around Lake Casitas with about 35-40km to go, and would roll in with the last group out on the road, and happy that I was able to get through the day! 

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Sam Boardman

Amgen Tour of California: Stage 5

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Not fast, not furious

So far I have watched Armageddon, Bad Boys, Speed, Con Air, Face Off, and The Rock, all for the first time and WOW they have not disappointed. Keep em comin

🤐

Arms are getting sore from pointing out all these potholes

Back in 2008, Vampire Weekend was definitely like, “dudes, the harpsichord is SO back.”

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