Portugal stage 5…

It was definitely a sweet and sour day today, sweet because Tyler was second, sour because for the third time in this race I crashed. The crash came at the halfway through the 186km stage when a musette ended up in my front wheel in the feed zone, sending me to the tarmac and remove a few good patches of skin from my knee, hip and elbow. The old left hip is taking a real beating this year and now has a permanent hard bump protruding from its side. As far as the racing went it was balls to the wall for the first 50km and it finally took a few j bags to attack while the yellow jersey was taking a nature break for a group of three to get away. Even then a few local Portuguese riders were trying to stir things up again but the Barloworld was having nothing of and would grab onto there jersey and tell them to calm down, haha.  This racing being much more aggressive than what most Pro Tour teams are used to and after over an hour of non stop attacking everybody is always quite happy when something finally get away, the last thing they want is some local rider to attack and just start the whole thing over again.  So after my crash I spent most of the remaining stage near the back just taking it as easy as possible which actually played well in our favor when at 20 km to go Tyler flatted with the team car was well back in the caravan I quickly gave him my wheel and sent him quickly on his way. He was able to rejoin the group as I waited for the car for a new wheel and from there just rode to the finish, taking nice and tranquillo. Tyler rolled in second, I rolled in second last, hahah, good team effort representing on both ends of the peloton. Still looking for the break.

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