Good day here in catalunya for stage 2. on what was a pretty straightforward day designed for a group sprint our budding your hardman/fastman daniele ratto galloped to a fine 2nd. The boys in green swarmed to the front in the final 10km and with 3km to counted 7 guys from the team in the first 30 riders which is just how always want to be. After the initial flat and easy 120km we were faced with 4 laps of a technical 10km circuit around lake benyoles north of barcellona, the site of the 1992 olympic rowing regatta where steve hawkins took tasmanias first ever olympic gold medal. Having watched his race a thousand times I felt I had an advantage of knowledge of the area but alas this knowledge of the rowing course did not extend to knowledge of the rd the twists and turns around it!!
The first 2 laps were crazy with riders going everywhere but fortunately it was hard enough that dudes started to get tired and moving up become very easy in the final 2 laps. With lap to I was right at the front and even took my turn on the front leading the group into a technical left hander ensuring our boys got through unscathed. From there it was plane sailing as we stayed around the front protecting our sprinters and in the final kick to the line ratto did an awesome job to take second.
Salerno retained his mountains jersey so all in all the cannondale jersey is getting plenty of air time. Tomorrow arrives the first of 2 very hard mountain top finishes so I am looking forward to that. Been a long time since I have raced up a long climb at this level so will be good to see where I stand!
Time for some shuteye
Cjw
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
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