SJF

Courtesy of InCase
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Photo by Mike Martin

Slow going on Wednesday’s stage. We rolled around 9:15 and reached the top of the final climb at maybe 5pm, having covered just 70 miles. At that point, the consensus was to pack it in for the day. We were still 45 miles from the finish.

A few of the delays:

• Cleat broken while skidding – 20 minutes
• Waiting for the race entourage to pass through – 40 minutes
• Many, many gear changes – 20 minutes

We started off under clear skies on gently rolling roads through the orchards outside Merced with the mountains on the horizon. But after the course left the valley floor, we didn’t cross a mile of flat ground the rest of the day and there wasn’t a climb or descent too small to warrant changing gears. I switched between 44×21 and 44×17, but I probably should have replaced the 17 with a 15. Oh well.

Photo by Mike Martin

That said, there was some amazing riding over snow-covered passes that had to be plowed earlier in the day because of the Tour. Mike got some gnarly descending shots from the scooter.

At least we knocked off all the day’s difficulties; from where we stopped, it was all downhill to the finish. I guess that riding track bikes during the Tour is an inherently slow method to cover these courses. Sure, It was disappointing not to complete the stage but that’s part of the adventure. Not every day is going to work out perfectly.

But one can always hope.

-
Josh