Team Garmin-Chipotle #1 team yellow numbers, Tour de France stage 4 individual time trial I’ve got a yellow number! I’ve never been on a TdF team good enough to get yellow numbers. We get them because we’re leading the team GC. This is due to Will’s excellent breakaway and near miss a couple of days ago. That launched us into first place. Then between Danny, Christian and myself, we managed to defend and even extend our lead in the time trial yesterday.

It’s been a great start to the race, but it is only the start, and we’ve got plenty to go through before we get to Paris. Everybody is racing really well, better than we’ve raced all year. The team spirit is amazing and seeing Will attacking first and ending up almost winning really captured the gung-ho, fearless attitude we’ve been trying to develop all year.

There was another episode that day that showed how well we ride and look after each other. Anyone who watched the stage may have seen a little moment just as the peloton got split up in the crosswinds where there was a helicopter shot of three Garmin riders hovering off the back of the front peloton. This was due to a stupid momentary lapse of vigilance by me. We turned left out of a roundabout into tail/crosswind. I still can’t fathom what I was doing so far back, but I was too far back. There was a horrendous crash right next to me as we turned into it. We came sprinting out of the roundabout and had our heads down. At the last moment, I heard a yell and the guys in front of me split to either side of a central reservation. I was on the left already, so was OK, but the guy next to me had his head down sprinting as hard as he could and went straight into a road sign. He stopped dead. It was horrific and I can still picture it perfectly in my head. I don’t know how he got back up again and finished but he did. Nicki Sorenson is a hard bastard.

Magnus Backstedt, Christian Vande Velde, Tour de France stage 3 That crash then set cat amongst the pigeons and strung it out even more. I was feeling good and didn’t think there was any real danger. Just as I was thinking this, Danny pulls up next to me and tells me he’s going to take me up. He then sprinted for about 500m and somehow managed to move me up the line out. At this point, I realized that the shit was hitting the fan. It became more apparent as I saw Fedrigo pulling out of the line further ahead, then Cobo, then Kreuziger. This is when I knew that all hell had broken loose. When riders of that quality can’t hold the wheel, you have to face the fact that the race is ON and you’re on your own.

I could see the main peloton drifting away and knew what I had to do. I paused for a few seconds and then went as hard as I could for as long as I could. On the file downloaded from the Garmin that evening Allen Lim was able to see that I did 4.1 km in 4mins 12secs averaging 533 watts at an average speed of 58.7km/h. So if you ever wonder why it splits in a crosswind, that’s why. I was the last rider to make it across, but even that effort didn’t quite get me there. I got to within 50m of the back of the group, which was tightly packed and protected itself from the wind. And this is the worse bit, the guys at the back of the group were oblivious to the carnage behind. I, in the mean time, was dangling 50m off the back nuking from the effort and those 50m may as well have been 10km. I felt like an astronaut whose tether has been cut.

Martijn Maaskant, Tour de France stage 2Then I saw Martijn (left) and Maggy at the back of the group and I shouted on the radio (what Maggy would later describe as screaming). I could only just get out, ‘Maggy, Martijn, LOOK BEHIND!’. The first time they didn’t turn, the second time I screamed Martijn looked behind. Without hesitating, he dropped out of the safety of the group and came back to me. At this moment, I was literally blowing up. I couldn’t even hold his wheel as he tried to accelerate me back into the group. After trying three times, he turned around and reached out his hand. It was a ballsy move as we were going very fast and it would transfer all his energy to me leaving him stranded and on his own. He did it though. I took it and he slung me as hard as he could. By this time, Maggy had dropped out of the group and was awaiting me a little further up the road. The momentum Martijn had given me allowed me to get onto the accelerating sanctuary of Maggy’s wheel and he towed me back on. The relief to find myself back in the front group was almost as strong as the few minutes of fear and pain I’d just put myself through.

I spent the next 25km disgusted at myself and much more vigilant, but it wasn’t fun. In the mean time, Will was up the road almost winning the stage clueless to the chaos behind. That’s always one of the interesting things about this race. There are so many different races and experiences being lived each day, dozens of stories and events for each and every stage. That’s what makes it what it is I suppose.

The time trial was good yesterday. I got beaten but I’m happy I was able to master the effort. I think there’s going to be a few opportunities these next two and a half weeks for me to rip up the race. The boys are firing on all cylinders and each of us is going to have our opportunity to shine. One by one you’ll see us doing what we do best. It’s hard to predict when and where, but then that would be boring, n’est pas? In the mean time, look out for the yellow numbers. We’re very proud of our yellow numbers.