Frankfurt.

I’m now in Frankfurt at 3etappen der Rad. It is a three day three stage race, which started with an 8km time trial. I had the chance to follow Austin in the team car before my own race, and scout the course that turned out to be very beneficial. In a matter of only 8km, the course had three 120 degree turns, one of which the follow car couldn’t make it through, Ben had to do the three point turnaround just to get the car around the tight turn. Other than the three hard turns the course was flat and straight as could be.

As I sat on the trainer warming up the air was hot and humid and I was beginning to sweat, but as the begin to look at the surrounding sky I saw that rain was inevitable. No less than 5 minutes later the rain came down hard, almost hail like drops. Then our mechanic placed wheel bags on my back as I continued my warm up. With ten minutes before my start I got to and put on my race wheels and rolled down to the staging area. All the while the rain was still pouring down and I was starting to get chilled, and not a minute later Anders finished and I saw his ripped up shorts. He crashed in the final 120 degree turn, because it was raining so hard he couldn’t see the cones. I then rode over the Ben in the team car and asked if it was still worth going for it, and he said “what do you have to lose”, so I remained chilled and road in the pouring rain back to the start area. As I was on the to starting block Ben called out on his megaphone which was placed on the front of the car, that riders were still posting fast times so I need to give it a go. As the clock hit 6:12 I was off. From there the race went well, the turns were wet but not extremely slick and my legs felt good so I powered my 52x 14 for most of the course. I finished with a time of 10’49” which slotted me into 9th place 14seconds behind the winning time. It was a good ride but the race is not over yet, we have two more road races each with lots of time bonuses out on route so I’ll need to be attentive and aggressive to improve on my position.