145km, 3600m
GD/Buster + TL/Ribs
Grand tours require sacrifice. One sacrifice was missing Lloyd's special birthday party. Day started with a great FaceTime at 10PM Kelowna time, 7AM Pau time. Lloyd, family and friends were clearly making TNA great again. Tribute video for birthday boy.
Bluebird, but not hot. Some cloud cover near the 4 cols passed through.
Keeping it tight with sock coordination. Might get disqualified for sock doping.
Spanish gals in the start coral behind us were very excited to help us with this photo. White kits still playing very well in Europe. Much better understood over here than in Vancouver. Local fans love the whites.
Stage today included a 10km climb (Cypress), 17km climb (2xCypress) and finished with a 10km climb (Seymour). Steep again. Like the 4th liner, Buster doesn't like the steeps. Thinks he needs a Nook pizza for a rear cassette. Join the club.
One of the more social people I know, Ribs makes friends with everyone, everywhere. He spent some time with the Latern Rouge today.
Again had some great photos by Tammy Brimner atop the 17km climb, Col Aubique. Scenery was a 10/10.
Recovery in a grand tour is extremely important and I take it very seriously.
These guys all smiles when they rolled through the finish. Small downer today was having to ride 13km to our hotel from the finish area (next town over has all the hotels). Smiles were not as big when I lead us 5km in the wrong direction turing a 13km ride into a 23km ride after completing a 6hr stage.
But as we've learned, beer and wheel fixes everything.
Two nights here. Mellower day tomorrow. Individual 16km uphill time trial tomorrow. Lots of time to start sweating the real start to this event - Day 4. More on that later.
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