The Tourist, Simon Clarke's diary, Ep.5

Today was a pretty hard day on paper. I was expecting a much more difficult day but the bunch decided not to chase the breakaway so hard, and that made for an easier than anticipated day in the peloton. It didn’t work out too badly.

I was definitely motivated today. It was the first test for Rigo, and I was looking forward to how he would go. I was apprehensive about how I would feel after the ride in the breakaway all day yesterday. In the end, the race wasn’t too hard so the effects of the breakaway weren’t felt too badly.

The team’s approach was to race the finish. The team didn’t plan, didn’t expect the break to stick, and we raced with that idea in mind. Unfortunately it was quite a strong break, and it wasn’t up to us to chase it down. The boys just raced as best they could. Rigo is sizing up his GC rivals at this stage. That’s about it.

I was in the front group until the bottom of the second to last climb. I helped them start that climb. When the pace really started to heat up, that was me down. After that I took it easy and cruised up to the finish, saving the legs for another day.

It’s always difficult to say this early in the race too much about the general classification There are still riders in the top 10 that aren’t expecting to contend in week three, particularly the likes of guys that were in the break today. I don’t think we need to give too much attention to where we are at GC at the moment. It’s where we are relative to the other contenders.