2009 Tirreno-Adriatico: Stepping Up

It's been a great week for the Garmin-Slipstream boys. From where I see it, for the first time the team has made a real mark on the Pro Cycling World by getting stage wins in the two biggest stage races of the Spring. First, it was Christian's win in Paris Nice, and then here at Tirreno-Adriatico, the team's young American sprinter smoked the World's best in a huge bunch kick at the end of stage 3. Both wins are really impressive results.

For me, Tyler's victory was particularly impressive. At this race, there are all of the World's best sprinters. Absolutely no one is missing and in fact, it's even rare that you get this many good sprinters at one race... And he beat them all. And actually, what made it an even more remarkable win was that there was nothing really lucky about the sprint. It was pure speed on his behalf. Most of the last 10 km was relatively untechnical with huge roads and a pretty basic, safe run in. So really you had to be good to win this stage. And he won convincingly. 

For me, this has really seen the team step up to another level. Now we just need to keep the ball rolling.

As for me, I'm plodding along. I haven't written since the first stage because I haven't had anything positive to say about my form. I have been terrible and that has bummed me out no end. I'm at a loss as to why I've been going so crap. If I hadn't been training hard then I'd have an answer. In fact, my training went really well leading up to this so I have no answers as to why I've felt like a fish out of water since this race began. We are now up to stage 6. Yesterday was the first of the hard days and finally I was feeling a little better and riding a little better. So I just have to be happy that I am on the improve. Still not really where I had hoped to be but nonetheless if I'm trying to find something good about every day, it's that I'm getting better...

We had the ITT today so after getting through that, we move on to the queen stage of this year's race. It's going to be an extremely hard day tomorrow. Really the last big effort before Milan-San Remo. Being a long stage, it will be a real show of who is going to have it in La Primavera next saturday.

I'll let you know so you can all go place your bets...

Julz
Team Garmin-Slipstream

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