It was blowing its behind of today for day one of catalunya which made for the usual tense peleton when these conditions prevail. Fortunately for our boys christiano salerno was feeling frisky this morning in the days breakaway and by days end had earned himself the king of the mountains jersey which is a nice feather in his cap! The rest of us just sat quietly in the bunch and waited for the inevitable catch to be made, I say quietly but with the wind it was quite the tense battle for position for the entire 4hrs which always keeps you on your toes. I was feeling very good and fortunately was able to spend most of the day in a good position up the front, at least until the crazy maniacs went bezzerk on the final plunging decent to the line and 12 riders stole some time on the rest of the peleton. It was a who's who up front so really no excuses, but you expect the big boys to attack on the climb and not the decent so I was a bit of guard, one moment I was there at the front then a few corners later I had no idea where they went! Anyways was good to not suffer to much with the rhythm having had so much time away from this level of racing and I am looking forward to the week ahead.
As a team we did our best to stick together as usual making it as painless a day as possible but inevitably with days like today we lost each other in the washing machine a little to often aswell. We will gell as the week goes on I am sure.
A highlight for me today was chatting with sir bradley wiggins. I had recently read his book where I noted he considered switching to rowing for the next olympics. I thought I should have a yawn with him about it which was pretty interesting during a relaxed period of the race. I made it very clear to him that if he wanted to he would have no dramas switching codes. The best example is drew ginn who switched to cycling only to switch back to rowing 2 years later and found himself 10% stronger than he had been in the past. Holey dooley!! Imagine how strong sir wiggo would potentially be in a rowing boat! Anyways he insists it won't happen but was interested to know if I would consider jumping back in the boat at some stage, the answer, absolutely!! Should I achieve the things on my list in this sport in the next few years the 2020 in a boat is somthing I will never rule out.
Anyways the point I am getting to was what a great reminder it was to me of how sport is the ultimate leveler! Here is annoying wurfy from tasmania chatting to sir wiggo, arguably the greatest sportsman on the plannet at the moment and it was a great conversation. It progressed inevitably back to cycling and the usual race programs and training programs coming up for us both but for me it was just great to have good old normal chat with a bloke I have been watching and admiring and trying to learn from since I began cycling. The way status can seemingly be swept aside simply by placing 2 blokes in a lycra outfit and sticking them on bike and pedalling it flat out throughout europe.
Having said that, he well and truly reminded me of why he is sir wiggo with the classy way he skipped away on the decent today, certainly one of those guys in the bunch that if at all possible, its a good idea to try and follow him!
Cjw
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