I hate TTs
I never liked TTs. Not as an athlete (I sucked at them) nor as a mechanic. It requires lots of work for such little mileage AND double the equipment. So, for our first stage, it is a Team Time Trial. That is even worse. SHIT! Since there will be a TTT in the tour this year, a few stage races (working up to the tour) have included it even this race. The Tour DE Suise has a TTT also. Thanks a hell of a lot to the Society Du Tour DE France for that one.
A lot of Spanish races will have two cars per team in the caravan 16 teams and we were car 6. Our other car will then be car 6 in the second caravan right behind ours. that means our second car was 18 cars behind us (the remaining 12 cars in the first caravan plus 6) That also means we can to take a spare bike for all of our riders (8 riders per team) split between the two cars. Our second team car will be driven by one of our Soigneurs (3 soigneurs here). He first goes to the feed zone and feeds our riders. After we pass, he drives our second car into the caravan. I looked back once on a climb and our entire caravan was an easy kilometer long.
Bonus was we stayed right near the beach for a great view (IF I had time, since we worked a lot the first two days at this hotel). OK the real bonus was a nice Square only two blocks from the hotel. It was about 3 square blocks in size and surrounded by cafes, gelaterias and places to get tapas. Also on top of the eating and drinking places were apartments. In Spain they eat very late. Usually START dinner at 8:30 or 9. After dinner we walked to the square and had a few beverages and some Tapas. A common Spanish bite size snack like an appetizer (almost dinner like too). Get a lot of these and pass them around the table. There is a place, near my apartment in Sacramento, that is called Tapas. Great place to relax, eat, drink and socialize.
Word(s) of the day (ones that I need to remember)
Crash = Caida
Puncture = Pinchare
Bummer for the day is that Cesar Garcia Calvo, who is a Relax/Fuenlabrada rider, plowed in to the Vitalicio/Seguras car and crashed so hard he broke the rear window. Scary!!! I did not like having to see that at all. The caravan was stopped for a while and by the time our car passed it was a solid 30 seconds later and he was still not moving.