We drove 2 hours or more cramped in the car in the extreme heat.
From what we had heard the stages weren't going to be too hilly. Which was going to be a welcome change for me.
First stage was 117km
Started fast and was splintering from the get go with riders not wanting to hit the wind.
I chased down a dangerous break of 15 and then went on the attack myself.
As people scrambled to get in the break riders where soft pedalling looking for team mates etc.
Eventually the group worked ok together, but there were still riders playing around. And heaps of attacks. I seemed to be covering all the attacks and the making splits to find that other teams werent willing to pull through.
To cut a long story short, I faded with 15km to go and couldn't bridge again.
Ended up 13th in the stage @1min
Stage 2
After so good zzzz's (recovery and all that)
Had a solid french breakfast.
Was keen to have another good hit out.
Conditions for the race were super windy and 32 deg heat, beating down on us, so i knew at once it was going to be tough.
First lap was fairly quiet, i threw in a couple of testers on the Yellow jersey and his team, had them on the ropes to get me back, but then no one from my team would attack over the top.
After the first sprint prime of the day fellow kiwi Alex Ray put in a really well timed attack.
I was right there on his wheel and 2 others. 1 from the yellow jerseys team, so Alex drifted him back to the peloton. I went hard to get a solid time gap, the guy that was with me was pretty annoying tbh and wasn't contributing much at all(but then got shitty when i attacked him)
To cut along story short, got out to a 2min 10sec gap, over the group and would have taken all 3 jerseys if the other guy had pulled a bit more, but in the end we were caught with 15km to go.
Finished up in the Sprint Jersey so pretty stoked with that but looking back should have taken more. Looking forward to taking some form into the next Tour and other races coming up.
KH
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