Portugal stage 4 finish
Fourth from the left, Tyler Farrar giving it a go for the finish of a crazy fast stage.

Today was insanely fast. We covered 165 km in 3 hours and 40 minutes. I’m still crossed and so are the rest of the guys. We did the first 50 km in one hour and it didn’t slow down much after that. In my whole seven years of racing the road, I have never seen so many guys getting shot off the back. The Portuguese were totally on fire today. The helicopter that follows and films the race couldn’t even keep up with us!

Christian, Lucas and Pat worked really hard to get into the early move. I would say about 20 moves went today with ten or more riders in them, but nothing stood a chance. We were rippin’. The finish was going to be nuts with one lap on a 20 km finishing circuit. We were all motivated to get Tyler in the mix amongst all the craziness. The last 20 km went up down and all around. Our lives flashed before our eyes over a dozen times. Just imagine trying to lead or even follow Tyler through a mass of sketchy Spanish and Portuguese riders.

With 10 km to go, there was a hard 1 km climb. CJ and I did everything we could to get Tyler over in the top ten. We did and thank goodness because the descent was mad. It wasn’t till the last turn with about 2 km to go that I had some trouble and was done with helping Tyler. My radio wire got caught and somehow wrapped itself around my cassette. I stayed up but had to coast the rest of the way.

Tyler later told me that with about 500 meters to go they had to race through a tunnel where he pulled some Ninja moves to move back up into winning position. After the tunnel, the riders swarmed the front and he got caught out a bit. With all this energy output before the sprint, it’s amazing he came in 4th. We did the best we could under the circumstances, but I think we can always do better. Every race we build, and I think before we know it we are going to start nailing these sprints.

Dan the man kept the overall Best Young Rider jersey, so that is awsome.

Tomorrow is a well-earned rest day. I’m going to watch a lot of movies I rented off iTunes after a nice morning spin.

Ciao, Cozza

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O stage 4 results
1. Francisco Pacheco 3h41′38″

4. Tyler Farrar +00″
44. Chris Sutton +00″
46. Dan Martin +00″
80. Lucas Euser +00″
82. Pat McCarty +23″
91. Christian Meier +27″
118. Steven Cozza +1′18″

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O GC
1.Rui Sousa 18h05′56″

11. Dan Martin +5′38
19. Pat McCarty +7′45″
32. Lucas Euser +10′02″
46. Steven Cozza +13′28″
81. Christian Meier +29′33″
94. Tyler Farrar +35′13″
105. Chris Sutton +36′14″

Team Garmin-Chipotle Best Young
1. Dan Martin 14h29′56″
2. Tiago Machado +1′21″
3. Jose Herrada +1′28″