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!!!!!