Qinghai Lake: Stages 8-11

Different stages, same story. Some were hard, some were easier, but in the end they all basically played out the same.  Top 10s every day.

First goal: Don't lose any time, and stay safe. We aren't racing on such undulating terrain anymore, but each of the past few days there have been avoidable crashes and splits in the crosswind. Being tired leads to inattention and making questionable decisions in the bunch, these lead to crashes. A couple days ago I had about a foot of space (which doesn't feel like that much room when you're traveling at 50km an hour) to scurry between the edge of the road and fellow American Jake Keogh's head as he went sliding across the pavement.

Second goal: Look for opportunities to move up on GC. Now, in the second, flatter week of the race this primarily involves crosswinds. Us and a couple other teams have the same general idea. If we encounter a section of strong crosswind, get together as a team, throw it in the gutter, and whack it for about 10min to see if we can't split the field. It often leaves the skinny climbers, who had their time to shine during the first week, flailing in the wind. Unfortunately, most guy in the top 10 on GC have pretty good teams to look after them, so the group usually gets welded back together.

Third goal: Set up Kiel and Aldo for the sprint. Aldo has a powerful sprint and a real shot at winning. Kiel's best shots at winning only come if the stage has been really hard, but he sprints to remain high in the points competition (he's 3rd right now) for which there's a nice payout. We've been fortunate to be able to play off the United boys who usually do a good leadout. After keeping our two protectees at the front and out of the wind during the last 15 or 20km, me and whoever is left from our team usually hop in the United train to contribute one last effort in the last 5km.

The teamwork and unity has been incredible these last few stages, the best I've experienced so far on this team. We haven't really gotten awesome results as of late but I don't care. We've always been where we've needed to be in key moments and function like a unit.

Tomorrow is the last important stage, a bumpy 220km. We're in the desert now, so it promises to be a hot one as well. Maybe my recent training in Arizona at 110*F will finally pay off tomorrow in the fight to not get dehydrated. It's the last chance for the GC to shift, and we plan to be aggressive.

On another note, EVERYONE is ready to go home. I think that 4hr transfer we did after the stage two days ago put everyone (not just us, riders and staff from pretty much every foreign team) over the edge. Bike racers are really good at complaining to begin with, but now in our tired brains there are all of a sudden hundreds of more things to complain about. And everything gets blamed on "China" which basically covers all the bases... mainly cultural differences. It seems like at every meal the last couple days someone has shown up completely flustered (from a list of minuscule reasons that they're going to tell you about), slams their plate down, hangs their head, and mutters some form of "f#cking China" before digging into their plate of plain white rice. We've all done it; it's taken lightly as in "ha welp guess it's his turn to crack." The best cure for it is to get some nasty bit of food, like a fish head or yak bone, flung at you from across the table by a makeshift chopstick catapult... brings you back to reality real quick.

Long race tomorrow, hydrate or die!!!!!

Qinghai Lake: Stage 7.... A WIN!

Victory!!! The team got its first win here at Qinghai courtesy if Aldo.  It was quite a relief to just race a 100km circuit race today in the city of Qilian, no KOMs, no transfers (the two things I hate most about bike racing). The 10km loop had a lot of turns, so it rode like a crit, and a sweet downhill sprint that suited Aldo's massive frame just fine.

I got in a break about 15km in with a handful of other guys and rode it until we got caught just before the last lap. I can't say that I was all that productive in the break as I didn't manage to get either of the intermediate sprints (I seriously have one speed here), but my teammates were appreciative that we had representation at least. As the bunch swallowed up me and the other escapees, I had just enough time to admire how well my teammates were riding as a unit near the front. As I cruised across the finish line at the back of the group I was excited to see Swanny Ronny grinning ear to ear, hands in the air, jumping up and down. "Hey Ronny, don't shake up my coke!"

Rest day tomorrow, and thankfully we're at this same hotel for another two nights. Not moving around makes life so much easier. I was finally able to wash out my pair of jeans today (because they have 2 days to dry) and was glad no one was around to see the amount of brown water that came out of them. In my mind jeans never actually get dirty, and washing them today was more of a superfluous luxury, so that was pretty astonishing. The only complaint I have about this hotel and many Chinese hotel bathrooms is that nothing divides the shower from the bathroom. No tub, wall, 2in high divider on the floor, nothing. There's a drain In the floor under the shower, which may make it a halfway decent design if the floor was actually built accordingly. Instead the floor doesn't drain so you have to wear shoes into the bathroom every time you need to pee or use the sink. Aaaand the floor and baseboards have no doubt been wet for who knows how long, cultivating an especially fragrant blend of mold/bacteria.

Had a nice little America Day celebration out in the parking lot last night with the other two American teams here (Jelly Belly and UHC). Jack found Chinese branded PBR*, and the other directors came through with some loud Chinese fireworks. Made for a great break in the monotony of laying in bed, staring at channel 5, as we do every night.

*Technically none of the riders partook in PBR drinking. We just watched.

Qinghai Lake: Stage 5 & 6

Kiel has continued to get second, in both stages 5 and 6. That makes it 3 in a row! I think he may be getting a little frustrated that the win keeps escaping him, but the rest of us think he's done incredible. He is second in the points competition as well after today's stage, and probably remains 9th on GC.

Stage 5 was a 200km trek with the last climb around 30km from the finish. It was a pretty small one anyhow, so we came to the line with basically the whole field, which includes a lot of quality sprinters. We had Aldo there, but just in the last 5km or so he made the call that he wasn't feeling up to a good sprint and instead switched to a leadout role for Kiel. With a little rise in the finish and the altitude to deal with, I don't think any of the "pure sprinters" had much of a kick at the end. Luckily Kiel is good at altitude and can do everything... Climb, sprint, ride a crosswind, etc.

Today, stage 6 was a bit of a bear. We started on a climb right out of the gate, continued slightly uphill for most of the stage until reaching the climb that took us to what I think was the highest point of the race, 3850 meters. From there it was just a 15km descent to the finish where Kiel out sprinted all but one in the 40 man front group to take his 3rd consecutive 2nd place.

We raced through some incredibly beautiful landscape today. I wish I could raced with my phone to take more pictures of such huge, green mountains. The way of life in the finish town today looked so simple and peaceful. The land was scattered with Mongolian cowboys (a name I made up for them...I actually have no idea where Mongolia is) eager to keep pace next to the race on horseback, as well as numerous tent settlements of nomadic yak, goat, and sheep shepherds.

Qinghai Lake: Stage 4

Bleh I don't have much to say about stage 4. I guess I'm starting to really feel the effects of altitude because I had zero top end speed today. I felt great just pedaling around at a steady 85% or whatever, felt like I could do whatever. But as soon as an intense effort was required of me, there was nothing there. Today, me sprinting was barely distinguishable from me riding tempo.

I made it over the climb alright by just riding steady in the second or third group and then catching back on the descent. But when I was required to come around dropped riders in the crosswind with 15km to go, I had nothing. All of a sudden the group was shattering, I couldn't close gaps, and I was in the third group on the road. Lost a few minutes by the finish.

On the bright side, Kiel was in the front group, finished second in the stage, and leapt up to 9th on GC! So while I wasn't of much use, it was a great day for Kiel and the team. Ninth on GC is much closer to where we'd like to be.

At our team meetings we are very upfront about discussing our likes, dislikes, and opinions on how we road the stage. The biggest complaint tonight came from Aldo... In his Slovenian accent, "Man, when we were all lined up, just starting the climb, I hear brrrrrrrrrrrp and then Joey's fart hit me in the face. Man, that fart took me up to about 5000 meters for 5 seconds, I could not breath!"

Qinghai Lake: Stage 3

So I'm sitting here at 9pm treating myself to graham crackers with peanut butter, chugging electrolyte enhanced water, just now starting to feel like I may actually be capable of racing tomorrow.

Today we climbed up to the Tibetan Plateau where the actual Qinghai Lake is located at an altitude of 10,500ft. In fact, our hotel is nearly on the bank. Fun facts: it is the largest lake in China; it is salt water; there have been bird flu outbreaks here.

The whole climbing without descending afterwards made the race pretty rough. Once we were on the plateau for the last 50km, we were also blessed with a couple frigid rain showers. So how'd the race play out? We started gently uphill from the gun fir the firs 80km until the KOM climb began for another 5km to finally get us up to the lake. I was in a break from about 30min to 1.5hr into the race before being caught, during with time I picked up a 2sec time bonus at an intermediate sprint. Then I suffered my butt off on the KOM climb while Kiel attempted to singlehandedly follow every acceleration made by the Columbians and Iranians, a job too big for any one man. Over the climb the group was completely splintered, but I managed to chase back on to join Kiel's group (as did a handful of others) until it was about 40 strong. By the time I regained contact there were fourteen guys off the front, with a lead approaching 1.5min. Julien and I got to work in the windy conditions, along with a few others, to finally bring the gap down to 45sec with 20km to go. There were many teams in our group with more representation than our mere 3 guys, including the yellow jersey, so we backed off (plus, we were tired) , expecting there to be plenty of other people interested in giving chase. There kind of were, but between the altitude and their disorganized methods of chasing the gap went back out to 1.5min by the finish. Not what we wanted. That puts us in a pretty poor position on GC. It's going to be hard to even crack the top ten with 14 guys already having that kind of time advantage.

Between that early break, the climb, and then chasing, I felt pretty worked upon crossing the finish line. When I made it to my hotel room afterwards, it was all I could do to shower, put on my warmest clothes, climb in bed, and stare at the ceiling, breathing and feeling my heart beat. At one point I grabbed my Preston & Child book thinking I was going to read. All that happened was that I laid back down with the book in my hand, and continued to stare at the ceiling.

Whatever city we're in is actually pretty cool. It's really small which I find much more appealing than the Chinas big, dirty cities. I ventured out to a marketplace after dinner where many vendors were selling animal furs. By the looks of it they had skinned any animal they could get their hands on; yaks, cats, foxes, dogs, and other unidentifiables. The dog ones make me kinda sad. This one in particular looked like he was probably really cute:

That's all I've got. More climbing tomorrow! I can't imagine that my legs will feel good tomorrow, but I've still gotta try to get the job done.

Tour of Qinghai Lake Stages 1 & 2

So the first two stages here at the Tour of Qinghai Lake are done. We haven't gotten much in the way of results yet, but the race is 11 more stages so I feel like we have plenty of time. We were hoping today was going to play out to be more of a GC day, but that wasn't so. After the only climb of the day (which was about 30km of false flat before a steeper final 3km) much of the field regrouped. I estimate around 80 guys came to the line together, so still the only thing that separates the GC is time bonuses a few people have collected so far. Kiel is riding really well, lives at altitude, and climbs well, so he's our leader. 

Speaking of altitude, the past 4 nights or so we've been staying at an Olympic training center that's around 7500ft high, and today we raced up to around 9000. I think tomorrow is generally all uphill for the first 70km before the proper climb starts and lasts for around 15km, getting us up to an altitude of 11,500ft where we'll spend the night on a plateau. The altitude has changed the game a little bit, and I expect to see an even bigger difference in the racing style in a couple more days when everyone isn't so fresh. The main thing is that in adds some unpredictability. Riders' bodies react differently, so some guys that are normally able to smoke field sprints just don't have it in the end. They know what they're supposed to do, line up, follow the lead out, but just come up dead when they try to open up their sprint. Conversely, there are a handful of riders that are completely unknown on the international circuit but who perform exceptionally well at altitude. Whether its because they live a altitude normally (like the one Columbia that's rumored to live at 12,000ft) or they're doped to the gills because they're on a small team that's not subject to the biological passport program isn't always clear. I expect in another few days we'll have a better picture of who the key threats to the GC are, but as of today we were flogging ourselves a bit trying to cover relentless attacks. 

This is my third time racing in China, and it's always quite an experience. Why racing in China is different:

- Predictable tactics go out the window with most Asian teams. In any given moment they are liable to chase their own teammates, or not.. you never know when they'll decide to pedal hard. 

- I'm pretty sure that the universal sign of "time out" or "pee break" (usually given by the rider in the leader's jersey when a break goes up the road that he's satisfied with) means "ATTACK" in Asia. Such a call is normally respected by all riders, and why not?? It's a sign from the leading team that they are happy with the situation and are willing to control the race from that point on, making it an easy ride for the rest of the bunch (of course, only until we near the finish and all hell breaks loose once again).

- There is little concept of personal space. In line for dinner it's normal for someone to make full frontal contact with your backside and snatch the spoon for the rice bowl just as your fingertips are mere inches away from grasping it. 

- The water is not clean, and can in fact make you quite sick (at least for Westerners who don't have immunity to the native germs). It's widely advised and followed by most riders to use bottled water for everything, including teeth brushing, and to not eat anything that's not cooked. No fresh veges or fruit except bananas because they have skin. 

- The soigners bring tons of food from home. I don't know how many boxes our head soigner Ronnie traveled with but it must have been a royal pain with all the goods he brought for us. I estimate he brought around 20 bags of cereal, 30 quarts of soy milk, about a gallon and a half of olive oil, maybe 5 or 6lbs of shredded parmesan cheese, honey, peanut butter, Nutella, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. He bout a rice cooker here and cases of drinking water daily. Yeah it's a lot to deal with, but it reduces the chances of riders getting food poisoning, which is guaranteed to happen to 1 or 2 riders per trip (along with the majority of the staff because they're a little more adventurous with their food choices than we are. When the restaurant food looks questionable, everyone's go to meal is a heaping plate of rice, olive oil, parmesan, and salt. Along with tuna or whatever kind of protein you brought from home. 

- Social media is blocked online, which means no Facebook, twitter, blogging, or YouTube. This doesn't matter that much except it just limits the possibilities when you're trying to kill time in a hotel room (which is very often). Also Facebook mobile is a way to text people back home, which is always nice. This trip I beat the system by downloading something called a VPN on my phone (I don't know what that is but when I turn it on I can access any website, so I like it).

- Chinese TV is very limited. Every show is soap opera style and there are rarely any music videos or Western (culture) movies, both of which are good in any language. The only thing we've settled on watching is channel 5 which is a sports channel.. Tho even that plays snooker for about 10hrs a day. It's on so much that I may as well look up the rules so I'll know what's going on rather than just staring at it. 

- The only way to do laundry is to pay the hotel for the service. That's expensive so the swannies will usually just buy some detergent for us to pass around so we can wash our kits daily in the sink. Because of all the oil, grime, and water on the roads it's SOP to wash and wear the same stained kit every day (to keep from ruining the whole lot) and throw it out (or at least only use it for training) at the end of the trip. 

Ooook that's all I've got for now. We have to have our bags out at 6:15am tomorrow for the transfer to the next town. Logic says I should go to sleep now, but we're praying that live coverage of the Tour comes on channel 5 after this volleyball game is over, so the temptation to stay up and watch it may get the better of me.