VUELTA A ESPAÑa, NR 2

One week on and here I am again. The typing and thinking are a bit slower, though. These last 3 mountain stages were tough and took a lot of energy. I hope you enjoy this weeks post where I’ll talk you through Louis’s crash and how I survive these brutal mountain stages.

We continued surfing our high wave of success after Ben’s victories this past week. It has really been a hard and fun Vuelta. If you look at how the current GC stands after 15 stages, just 40 seconds separate the top 4. It shows how open and unpredictable this year is. Big groups going up the road every day. Some days they stayed away, some days not. So it was vital to be present and on the front foot. We managed to do this perfectly. Every day once the break was established we found ourselves in a good tactical position. This is a great feeling, to be on the front foot, rather than back. As complicated and difficult it is to get that right, it’s so easy to be taken away. One little patch of sand in a corner can wipe away months of hard work, dreams and goals. And cause some sleepless nights, of course.

As I climbed to the top of Les Praeres. Nava with the rest of the grupetto some of my teammates were already on their way down to the team bus. Let me add this was the steepest climb I’ve done in my career. Just 4km, but it’s a bastard. I’ve never ridden anything so steep (go check out my Strava profile Strava van Zyl if you keen to see the Garmin files and segments.) Usually, we would joke around with each other as we pass, but today they hardly smiled. I thought ‘good, at least I’m not the only one who suffered up here.’ Much later after I struggled down the mountain making my way through all the spectators I arrived at the bus and learned of Louis’s crash.

Now their faces made sense. He had a horrible crash 20 odd kilometres to go. He managed to get back up and ride it out. Ben stopped and stayed with him to reassure him everything will be alright. Me, being in the grupetto and out of radio contact, had no idea of all this drama.

One little patch of sand and everything we’ve worked towards falls apart. I’m grateful that he didn’t get seriously injured. It could have been way worse, so a couple of stitches and sticky bed sheets is a blessing in my eyes.

This was a big blow to our morale. Staff and riders. We are all in this together. Now we have to reassess the situation and set new goals. Adapt to the new circumstances.

Enjoying a relaxing recovery ride along side the coast

Rest day nr 2

While that action happened up the road, I was busy getting through the stage in the grupetto. When my job is done for the day my next job is to save as much energy for the next. There’s no point in racing flatout to the finish over the mountains to finish 40th/50th/60th. In my role, it’s all about saving energy. Some days the energy saving mode comes early on, some days I have to push to the finish. On stage 13 for instance, Astana started racing right after the feed zone up this massive climb. The group reduced drastically as some guys were caught off guard while feeding. I had to turn myself inside out to get over that climb in the front group to be able to support Louis for the following 60km in the valley. I was proud to do this though but paid for that effort the following two stages.

So far the time cut has been quite lenient. It’s calculated on our average speed. The higher the speed, the higher % time cut we have. For example, yesterday the time cut was 48 minutes and the day before 53 minutes. Unless you have a seriously bad day, it’s manageable. It’s always better to be in a group than by yourself and even better when you know there are experienced riders who know how to judge the effort. Quickstep are here with mainly lead-out riders for Viviani, so they normally control and form the grupetto.

The pace is steady up a climb, still hard, but you are not on the limit. The front guys are flying up the mountains so if you completely back-off the pedals then you’ll lose way too much time. Then on the downhills, you have to push and go fast. If done properly, you won’t lose time on the downhills. Then in the valley, the grupetto usually forms a pace line where everyone rolls through. This is a great way of going fast without spending much. Sometimes when the grupetto forms early you can sense some ‘stress’ or ‘urgency’ as it’s still a long, long way to go. Other times when it’s a flattish stage with a hilltop finish at the end everyone is relaxed.

I’m looking forward to this week. Tomorrow we have a 34 km ITT. We are in the beautiful area of Cantabria. The views are breathtaking. We are honestly privileged to be able to travel the world and see these beautiful places while riding our bikes.

We are refreshed after this rest day and ready to squeeze some more out of this Vuelta.