Team Garmin-Transitions’ Cameron Meyer will be sending in regular dispatches from the Giro d’Italia.
Giro d’Italia Stage 6 – Things are looking up
What a great stage. I really enjoyed todays race and most is due to the fact my legs felt good and my health felt much better. This stage had a little bit of everything. 172km long with 3 climbs along the way the heavens dropping a little bit of rain here and there.
It took a fair while for the break to go as we raced on the wet roads for quite some time. Two riders ended up escaping in which one was Matt Lloyd a fellow Australian who ended up taking a great stage victory.
The first climb was 10km long at an average gradient of 5%. The bunch set a good pace up the climb but everyone made it over. I struck trouble on the decent, puncturing 1km in and after a change from the mavic spares car I had a 20km wet decent chase to get contact back with the peloton.
I have to say I have never cornered so fast in the wet in my life. Matt White had me behind the car at high speeds and it was basically shut your eyes and hope you make it around the corner. I rejoined at the bottom of the climb and had a good 30km before the next 8km berg.
Up the next climb the field started to split and I was told to find a big bunch that had been dropped to ride into the finish. The aim is to try and save as much energy as I can over the next few days in order to have more energy to help Tyler in two days time. I went a little further then I probably should of on the climb but my legs felt good so I kept going.
Half-way up the climb David Millar who on our team is sitting 7th overall punctured and after a quick wheel change I dropped back with Dan Martin to help pace him back onto the main group. It was a hard task and after the stage David said he was sitting around 600 watts for a couple of km when we were chasing back on. That made me feel a bit better as to why it did hurt so much.
I pulled the anchor on a couple km from the top and road in with the big sprinters bunch that had been dropped. It was a good feeling that my legs are coming back. Todays 7th stage is going to be a wet one and we are heading over the white dirt roads of the Tuscany region. This will be a new experience for me and at 222km long it will be a tough stage.
Ciao,
Cam
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