I advise you to get caught up on the Tour of Qinghai Lake so far, here is the first post.
OK. Before we get into the day, lets first talk about how China seems to feel about all the ice in the world:
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| Silly Rabbit, Ice is for melting! |
Ok, with that out of my system, on to stage 10!
Another day, another stage profile that underestimated just how hard the climbs would be. We started out on that not-a-climb-in-chinese climb, attacks flying, dudes wishing attacks would be done flying, and the yellow jersey decidedly marking me. No, seriously, we had a talk about it after the stage, and a few times could have been a coincidence, but of the maybe 7 times I attacked or followed a move, 6 of those were accompanied by the yellow jersey "HELLO JIM IM ON YOUR WHEEL" but in Kazakh so it sounded different. We determined he thought I was Chad. I evaded him all the same, because that's what I do. IN THE BREAK was I, other things that I was:
- Hot
- Hydrated, too hydrated....
- Still sick of rice
- Eating rice cakes (gag)
- Peeved at the level of work-together-ness in this group (that being equal to none)
We hit a tunnel at the top of a climb, and suddenly we were in a vacuum where there was no draft and we constantly accelerated until being shot out of the other side like sweaty princess cannonballs, 2 sweaty princesses got dropped, sitting on is a bitch! You got what you deserved.
Later on in this slog to end all slogs, we still had 4 minutes on the field, however nobody seemed to be trying to hard to keep that gap, nor did the field seem to care that there was a bike race happening, so we got to the top of a fake climb and, as well hydrated hot cyclists sometimes do, decided to take a pee break, IN THE BREAK. Unprecedented. Unbelievable. Un... lucky!
At the same time we decided to empty our bladders, the field decided to empty our hopes and dreams. I guess guys started to attack on the climb, which in conjunction with our pee break, caused the gap to go from well over 4 minutes to 36 seconds, all in about 3 minutes. BALDERDASH. And, wouldnt you know it, A guy from Kolss came across the gap! Standard.
At this point I was used to insane things happening at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, but this seemed to put me over the edge. The break immediately started attacking itself, literally with our man parts still out, and all hell was most certainly breaking from being unloose. Tight. Hell was no longer tight.
Hell was breaking loose.
You know what? Screw it. I went back to the field. In time to go up the next categorized climb, nearly getting dropped, and at the top I decided that I was over this race. We teamed up to do a leadout at the end, had the front with 1k to go, but then the Yellow Jersey decided he was bored and won the damn stage. I. Well. I was flabbergasted. I feel like I need to post a picture now.
Ok, back to my feelings about the yellow jersey. In an email to Bobby Sweeting that night, in response to the question "Hows China?" I replied (among other, rather censored, things):
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| Blurry. Just as I remember it. |
- Hot
- Hydrated, too hydrated....
- Still sick of rice
- Eating rice cakes (gag)
- Peeved at the level of work-together-ness in this group (that being equal to none)
We hit a tunnel at the top of a climb, and suddenly we were in a vacuum where there was no draft and we constantly accelerated until being shot out of the other side like sweaty princess cannonballs, 2 sweaty princesses got dropped, sitting on is a bitch! You got what you deserved.
Later on in this slog to end all slogs, we still had 4 minutes on the field, however nobody seemed to be trying to hard to keep that gap, nor did the field seem to care that there was a bike race happening, so we got to the top of a fake climb and, as well hydrated hot cyclists sometimes do, decided to take a pee break, IN THE BREAK. Unprecedented. Unbelievable. Un... lucky!
At the same time we decided to empty our bladders, the field decided to empty our hopes and dreams. I guess guys started to attack on the climb, which in conjunction with our pee break, caused the gap to go from well over 4 minutes to 36 seconds, all in about 3 minutes. BALDERDASH. And, wouldnt you know it, A guy from Kolss came across the gap! Standard.
At this point I was used to insane things happening at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, but this seemed to put me over the edge. The break immediately started attacking itself, literally with our man parts still out, and all hell was most certainly breaking from being unloose. Tight. Hell was no longer tight.
Hell was breaking loose.
You know what? Screw it. I went back to the field. In time to go up the next categorized climb, nearly getting dropped, and at the top I decided that I was over this race. We teamed up to do a leadout at the end, had the front with 1k to go, but then the Yellow Jersey decided he was bored and won the damn stage. I. Well. I was flabbergasted. I feel like I need to post a picture now.
 |
| Only one pair of feet in the air?! I cant believe it, normally there were more feet than heads visible on the transfer bus. |
The yellow jersey is Vinokorov's Chernobyl baby that we are pretty sure, much like rookie of the year, slipped on a bike at some point and broke his body into being the best biker of all time. The only difference being he will not be throwing any slow balls in the world series, he will just cover every move until 3rd on gc goes up the road, Chase him down, and win the field Sprint by a bike length with his mouth closed. Then punch an Iranian through a tree just because they attacked too much.
So, all is normal here. Glad to hear fatherhood is awesome. Stay away from sea slugs and the "pulled face" they were serving last night.
Sincerely,Jim, the tired.
That would be that for the day.
Tomorrow (a two stager): A director gets stabbed, Kolss begins to slowly take $12k from La Pomme, Taylor rolls the break because "why not, this race is now stupid", I chase an old man off for laughing at my butt, and nobody attacks but Chad!
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