Written by: Rebecca Heaton
Posted: Sunday, 24 February 2008
Page 1 of 3
Toyota-United pro rider Ben Day continues his blog on his and his team's experiences at the 2008 Amgen Tour of California.
Check out a photo gallery of the event!
Entry #4
A day in
paradise. I have this thing where I don’t like looking at the weather
forecasts the night before a race. It saves dreaming (or call it a
nightmare) about what could lay ahead for the next day. We were greeted
by 48f and drizzle this morning, on a stage which included a some tricky
technical descents, including the one off a climb called, Trinity Grade.
We are all professionals, and so we don’t have any choice whether or not
we race in certain conditions, but we also understand the risks involved on
fast roads that have moss on them! With this in mind, the first half of
the stage was raced fairly tranquilo, with no unnecessary risks taken.
Still, a few people crashed in the treacherous conditions. With not
much protecting our bodies when we are riding, when we drop ourselves, it
really does some damage. One of my teammate has a few problems with his
hip because he has crashed on that side so many times, he doesn’t have much
skin left there!
Another reason for all you folks out there to think that we are tough (or a
little crazy), is to talk to the smattering of riders in the field who have
come down with a viral infection. It seems that at least one person from
every team has spent one of the last two nights vomiting. Imagine being awake
doing that all night, knowing that you have to drag your way through the stage
the next day and finish within a certain time limit so that you can continue in
the tour and play your part, be it for a result later in the week, or just to
be there to get water bottles for your teammates. Speaking of teammates, a team
is so much more powerful than an individual. My teammates have been
looking after me as much as possible in the past two days, sheltering me from
the wind, getting me water bottles and stopping with me when I have a call of
nature, just so that I can get to the more decisive moments of the race with a
bit more energy in store which may give me the opportunity to obtain a good
result.
Tomorrow will be the first decisive moment of the race. We have something
like 4 or 5 climbs to contend with on the course including Mount Hamilton,
where snow has been reported, and Sierra Road, a perennial favorite (of the
masochists) for the Tour of California. Who knows what the weather will be
like tomorrow, I’ll look at that in the morning!
Back to the stage today. Much the same as yesterday, one guy up the road
and the peloton left out there to suffer until the end of the stage when the
Quickstep team took over. This is the team where you will find current
World and Olympic Champion, Paolo Bettini and ex World Champion Tom Boonen.
We arrived into Sacramento after 116 soggy miles and raced 3 laps of a
circuit, with those favorite little things of mine, road dots everywhere (I’m
Australian…we’re sarcastic). Boonen powered to the line first, with
Heinrich Hausler 2nd and freshly out of retirement, 41-year old, Mario
Cipollini! That was pretty cool if you ask me! Our guy in form,
Dominique Rollin didn’t have a great run at the line and finished 7th. He
is moving well….
I have to go to bed guys. We have a 2 hour transfer to the start in the
morning, the hardest stage of the tour with 103 miles, and a 1.5 hour drive to
the race hotel after the stage. The day after that is 140 odd miles along
the gorgeous Highway 1. Sweet dreams to me!
BD
Entry #5
Ouch.
I really sucked today. This is definitely not a sport that you can
plan. It was a pretty brutal day, 5 categorized climbs including one
“special” category climb which made the infamous Sierra Road look fairly easy.
My teammates looked after me well, but unfortunately, once we made it to
Mount Hamilton, the 5000 foot climb, I had no power, instead I had dead and
heavy legs. Whether it was the rain yesterday that affected me physically
a little, whether it is a mild case of the flu that has been passing around the
peloton, who knows. But today was definitely one for me to forget.
Heath “A Half” Blackgrove was still riding well, like he has been for the past
month, but I saw him again, soon after I had been dropped as he overshot a
corner on the dangerous descent of Mount Hamilton and went a little ways off
the cliff! The team directors in the car panicked a little after they
hadn’t seen him for 10minutes and then another team came past and told them
what happened! Thankfully, he was alright. For the sprinters, today
was a day of survival. A tour such as this one, imposes cutoff times for
the dropped riders. If you lost more than 10% of the winners time today,
you were pulled from the tour. Our youngest recruit, Johny Clarke, had
his bad luck continue. After spending the other night throwing up
constantly, he was struggling through the stage with the last bunch in the
race, known as the grupetto. Then he punctured, lost a few more minutes,
and was outside the time cut. He really pushed himself through his
ailments this week and it was a shame to see his tour end this way. I am
sure he will be back with a vengeance.
So not a good day for us. Meanwhile, as predicted, Levi Leipheimer, 3rd
in the last Tour de France, ripped the race apart, but he along, with Robert
Gesink from Rabobank, were only able to finish the stage a handful of seconds
behind the chasing group behind them. This group contained THE world’s
best time triallists, Fabian Cancellara, David Zabriskie, and David Millar.
These riders are all within 30 seconds on Levi and the TT is going to be
raced full on in Solvang on Friday. First though, we have a 230km stage
along Highway 101 tomorrow. It will be very pretty I am sure….pity we
will be hurting too much to not really be able to take it all in!
Watch the race guys, it’s going to be a pearler!
BD
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In the spirit of this election year, as candidates local and national are out campaigning and the Democratic National Convention kicks off in Denver end of this month, we decided to check in with busy politicians around our active state to hear how they stay fit and healthy. 
