China 1 stage 3

Stage 3 is in the books and ultimately was to the script. A small climb midway dropped a few out the back but still the stage ended in a big dangerous group sprint. The most excitement for me happened on the drive to the start as our mini van fell behind the police escort. Our chinese driver put all his local driving skills into action leaving one thumb permanently planted on the horn using the other fingers for steering and one to change gears. We spent about 20min driving between the footpath, medium strip, bike lane and occasionally ventured into a regular lane!! In the end I could not look, light colors where ignored and after the mad chase we regained contact with the race convoy and my heart rate was able to drop below 200 finally. Funnily enough it never even got that high in the race!!

As for the race no break ever went. I did my best to form a small selection on the climb attacking what felt like 1000 times but could never break the clutches of the field. There was always s head wind and this meant someone could always chase and give others a draft before they then chased and so on and so on for all those on the wheel behind. It just was not happening for me today. To rub insult into injury when I finally broke clear and got a reasonable gap, perhaps 20 seconds, the helicopter decided he should get a close up and got lower and lower until just hovering infront of me which not only almost blew me into the nearest rice paddock but also back to the chasing bunch and instantly my lead was gone and the bunch sprint eventually transpired. There were a few to many crazies in the group for me so I just sat safely out of trouble and happy to wait for another day to go for glory.

Our chinese strongman xu gang retained his lead in the "great chinese rider" competition so all good. The "bundy bullet" our spinter aaron had an easy day in the back groups and will have fresh legs for the next sprint stage we tackle so all in all still going well for the champion system boys here in tour of china 1.

Power data again was high and I am really happy with how I am feeling so will keep attacking!!

Distance 124km
Time: 2hrs 40min, 45kmph average
Average/max power: 322/1062watts
Heart rate average/max: 147/188Bpm
Energy burnt: 3000kcal

Cjw
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