What can I say about the climbing? It was a death march. For this stage, I was sitting in the pack, covering a few break attempts, staying near the front, and climbing from the front. I've done a few other races with large packs and tough climbing and the thing I've learned is not to try to climb from the back of the pack. If you do, you end up weaving through all the guys who can't cut it and you risk having to spend more energy catching on.
With those thoughts in mind, I raced a conservative strategy and stayed in the lead group. What made it tough was the cramping. On the last climb, my quads were screaming and it was if they would contract fine, but I couldn't get them to relax between pedal strokes. It was excruciating. What really threw me for a loop was the attacking that went on after Chicken Coop. Bret Neylon and Scott Moon (Heroes Foundation) were tag team attacking the group all the way to Bremen. I was in some shape to cover the moves.
As we came in to Bremen, we swerved to miss the horse poop and then everyone jockeyed for position before the last corner. I missed an opportunity there and had to sprint from the back of the pack and I only managed 10th for that day. This stage ranks high on the difficulty scale. Good job to Abe McNutt for winning on a solo attempt.
The racing was clean and fast at times and I only have one comment to make about sportsmanship. I don't think it was quite kosher to have Steve Slabodnick racing for Dayton without wearing their jersey. In addition, he was a team B member and covering for the A team. He did a lot of blocking while Abe was off the front and it didn't dawn on me until after the race what had happened.
