Tour of Austria, one of my favourite races of the year. Beautiful country, intense stages, good hotels & food, what’s not to like?
This was my 4th participation and probably my favourite. The team we had there really rode well together, had fun and committed to the daily goal. Check out this gallery below captured by Mario Stiehl. I added some captions.
Quick chat with our DS, Alex Sans. Also picked up some fresh drinks. We were really lucky with the weather this tour. The one day it rained was also the shortest and least technical so it didn’t really bother any of us.
Stage 2 threw us a curveball. Louis suffered an untimely mechanical 15k to go as the race was busy exploding up this valley. Jacques gave him his bike. Lachie and Ben brought him back to the remainder of the peloton. I moved him back to the front and from there he was on his own up the final kicker to the line. Great team work.
The break had some horsepower.
Stage 4 looked like a day for the break. So we went for it. Most teams had that same pre stage meeting apparently. Shots were fired over two big categorised climbs in the first 40k. Eventually, we were 4 up the road. Astana started chasing and didn’t allow us much more than a 30 second gap. We weren’t going to give up and pulled full gas down the valley until we eventually forced the gap up to 1min30. Steve went solo 20k out. Unfortunately, he suffered a mechanical short before the finish. Pretty sure he would have bagged that win. Shit happens.
My wife, Melissa, came over to support.
