MedS4_Martin Today we definitely paid for all the good weather we’ve had so far. It was very wet. Near on five hours in the pissing rain! But at least the sun was shining on a certain Mr. Peterson today who finally got in the right break. Although the peloton never gave the group too much leash, because of the team classification or something. These Portuguese! They always seem to find a reason to ride hard!

Anyway, after negotiating the long 2nd category climb and even longer, twisty descent, the break got reeled in. With 10 km to go, the rain still pouring, we decided to do a lead-out, mainly to avoid the chaos as everyone was fighting for position into the headwind. The plan worked and I actually felt really guilty watching the four guys go so hard on the front while I stuck to Tyler’s wheel. It was perfect though as we had a clear, no stress run into the final 2 km. Then the other teams took over making it too fast to move up.

It was quite dodgy in the final kilometer and I couldn’t believe it when that gap I was searching for, to get that white jersey, appeared five places in front of me. I was actually quite happy to see the final split was six seconds. Imagine missing the best young jersey by one second!

Overall it was a good week. Everyone has shown good form with a string of good placings. Lucas’s crash is the only downer but he should be back fighting at the Route de Sud Thursday. There hopefully we can continue to grow stronger both as a team and individually.