‘Cortina blew a gasket, leaving four of us up front’
EVERY evening around 7pm, us riders get a text from our BMC team chief mechanic Aaron asking if we want to change anything on our bikes for the next day’s stage. Wheels, sprockets and chainrings are the most common changes, especially in the mountains, so you text him back and your bike is ready for whatever the stage throws at you the next morning.
Unless of course, you forget to answer, like I did last night.
By the time I realised I had a 39 tooth chainring on but would probably need a 36, at breakfast this morning, the mechanics’ truck had already left for the day.
Emergencies
Luckily they keep a few chainrings and stuff in a toolbox in the boot of the team car for such emergencies and were able to change it for me before the start – which is just as well because I don’t think I would have made it up the last climb today on a 39 ring.
With five big mountains ahead of me, I made it into the main move of the day this morning, a six man breakaway containing my team-mate Brent Brookwalter; Thomas de Gendt (Lotto), Michael Woods (Education First), Ivan Cortina (Bahrain-Merida) and Sky’s Michal Kwiatkowski.
Although Kwiatkowski had started the day around five minutes down on race leader Jesus Herrada of Cofidis, I expected them to give us more slack than they did today.
Yesterday there was a tailwind and they gave 30 riders nine minutes, but today they only allowed our sextet a maximum lead of just under four minutes – into a headwind.
I don’t know why they kept us so close. The break always loses around three minutes on the last climb and even if ‘Kwiato’ took the jersey, he’d be wrecked tomorrow so there was no need to panic behind.
When the gap stabilised at around 3’30” after 30km, we knew it was going to be difficult but we all committed and did our turns on the front.
Fourth in the mountains competition, De Gent attacked at the top of the second category Puerto de San Isidro to take maximum points after 60km, but we reassured him that he could have all of the points he wanted as were more interested in getting to the finish ahead of the peloton.
The Belgian rode tempo on the next two first category ascents, before a mechanical left him 10 points off the mountains jersey on the second last climb – where Cortina blew a gasket and left just four of us with a two-minute gap out front.
I had thrown away my bottles to reduce weight on the climb but a kilometre from the top I was dying of the thirst and grabbed a can of coke from a spectator.
Stuffing it in my jersey until the road headed downwards I spilled half of it all over myself trying to open it on a bumpy descent.
When I heard a loud scraping on the tarmac at the back of our group, I thought a motorbike had crashed, but it was actually Woods who had slid out on the wet bend, cutting our escape group to three.
With Brent dropped on the next climb, Kwiato driving a little too hard for me and the peloton only 40 seconds back, I eased up with 20km to go – in the hope of being able to stay along with the bunch for the summit finish.
Here, the steep gradient and loose gravel saw me reduced to a 36x30 on the slope and reminded me to thank my mechanic this evening. Sunday, September 9, Stage 15: Ribera de Arriba to Lagos de Covadonga (186km)
Most mornings the stage start has been in an area of outstanding beauty, but today we started outside a power plant. As if the stage wasn’t long enough at 186km, we had a 10km neutralised section around the power plant before racing got underway.
Another day in the mountains meant another go at getting in the breakaway and today I was the last one to make it across.
After putting myself into the red without success on the opening third category ascent after 20km, I jumped after Kiwi George Bennett of Lotto NL on a small incline after 35km.
It took me a bit longer than him to close the 20-second gap to the 11 leaders but at least I made it.
With a summit finish atop the tough 11km Lagos de Covadonga today, I knew we’d need a lot of time to stay away, but unfortunately I picked the wrong day again.
Emergencies
While the Mitchelton-Scott team of race leader Simon Yates had let our gap grow to five minutes as we hit the second category Mirador de Fito for the first of two ascents, after 100km, Astana took over the chase there and began to eat into our lead.
The second time around, Bauke Mollema attacked for the mountain points at the top and my legs went.
I descended as fast as I could to close the gap but not having made the juncture by the valley at the bottom, I gave up and eased off.
The chasing peloton caught me about 2km from the top of an uncategorised climb with 25km to go.
My plan was to fight to stay with the group – but nobody told my legs.
I climbed with Dani Moreno of EF, finishing 18 minutes behind stage winner Thibaut Pinot of FDJ.
At the top we had to turn around and ride back down to the buses.
Blagging a lift from my old directeur sportif Fabrizio Guidi on the descent saved my legs – until we drove past the BMC bus in the fog and I had to ride back up a kilometre.
Bring on tomorrow’s rest day!