The roads dried out for the most part Tuesday evening. The slight S-SW breeze proved to be somewhat favorable. The only negative factor was an approx 30 inch wide cut across the road on Smith Ridge near Blackcreek.  I blew out a couple of clean paths through the large gravel fill hoping to avoid flat inducing punctures. 

Three TTers were chomping at the line ready to roll at start time. Tiago found a few extra watts to shatter his PR by 3 seconds and posted a phenomenal time of 21:18 (28.16mph) !   It was a nice tune-up for the Lake George Olympic distance race this weekend.  Ken recovered nicely from his 20mph ave Century ride 9 days ago and rode his best time of 2023 with a 25:26 (23.60mph).  He also ignored my nice paths through the gravel and somehow "flew" over the heavy gravel. Skills!  

Day 3:  Mtn top finish!   The big boys came out to play.   With about 4 km to go Jay Vine went to the front to push the pace for his team mate, Ayuso, and to whittle down the group on the 13% grades.  Jay Vine has an interesting story...  winning Zwift Academy three years ago and then getting a pro contract - from riding his trainer in his garage to the pro tour.  Around the 2km mark,  20 yo Ayuso makes his move, stalls out and then American Sepp Kuss has a go at it.   He's trying to soften up the group for his team mates Roglic and Vingegaard.  The remaining breakaway leaders have been caught.   1km to go... Several hard pushes by riders that don't lead to anything substantial.  At 500m Sepp Kuss is pacing about a dozen remaining riders which include Roglic, Vinge, Evenepoel,  Mas,  20 yr old Ayuso.   Evenepoel attacks !    Vinge tries to match, no one else is quite there... Evenepoel wins...  hands in the air, glides across the line, doesn't hit his brakes immediately and suddenly realizes he has no where to go and crashes into a woman taking pics and then falls over and cuts his eye brow.  Blood flows freely down the side of his face.  Another Vuelta organizer fiasco!  Why wasn't a path clearly demarcated for riders?   In the 23 yo Evenepoel's post race interview he succinctly stated "Again, some things of safety. It was only 50 metres after the finish line, and it’s the third day in a row and it’s a bit breaking my balls now."

So much fun to watch!

Brian

Director de Contrarreloj