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Stage 6 Wrap Up with a Little Music in the Background

August 07, 2010 - Filed under: Rider Blogs

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I’ve mentioned the mid-afternoon starts and late finishes here at the Tour of Poland. It’s now after 11pm, I am well fed, and I received a recuperating massage from one of our great masseurs, a Belgian named Mark. I’m now lying in bed pecking away at my computer, sorting through a few emails before calling it a night. I thought I would draw my day to a close by bringing you up to speed with another brief bit of Polish culture and a quick race report.

The cultural news update is primarily on account of me wondering how I’m going to fall sleep tonight with the Polish music pumping away out my hotel window. It’s somewhat surprising to me to hear this in the first place, since unlike our hotel on day one <http://bit.ly/9pPW0i> which housed the entire peloton and race organization, this hotel is a considerably smaller bed and breakfast style establishment way off the beaten path. In any event, listening to Polish music has been part of our daily routine as we’ll get the bus thumping away on the way to the race with the latest in Polish tunes. Think Polka with an electronic flair; it's catchy and induces the compulsion to clap one's hands or tap one's toes almost immediately. It’s also interesting to not be able to understand a single word being uttered when there are lyrics. At least in Italian, French, Spanish, and other languages belonging to the countries in which I race, I’ll understand certain words and phrases. Polish music, on the other hand, is utterly incomprehensible to me and all my teammates.

My apologizes for not updating after yesterday’s stage. As expected another late start and then an unexpectedly early morning left me without time to do this. Unfortunately as I mentioned previously, we lost Xavi Tondo to a broken collarbone on stage 5. It was especially unfortunate since yesterday’s stage would have suited him perfectly. It featured a considerable amount of climbing and finished on and fairly steep (and impressively well attended) 5km climb. In all likelihood, and I’m being completely objective here, he would have won the stage and earned himself a nice new yellow jersey.

Alas, that’s bike racing, that wasn’t the case, and we therefore entered today’s similarly difficult stage one man down and not with the yellow shirt being adorned by our fearless leader. Today was 228km, preceded by an emotional 12km neutral roll out that featured a stop at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Riders from every nation represented at the race placed a rose on the front gate, followed by a moment of silence.

Once the race got underway, after about 20km the skies opened up something horrific! We went from sunny skies all around us at the race start to terrifyingly dark, tremendously loud thunder cracks directly overhead, lightening virtually everywhere lighting up the sky all around us, and wind enough to knock riders clear off their bikes! Scary? Yes, you could say that. Thank goodness that died down after about thirty terrifying minutes and once we were fully saturated we were able to finish the stage. This was another great stage for Xavi, but we were riding for Gabriel Rasch, who put forth an impressive effort to improve upon his GC spot. Unfortunately that attempt came up short in the fierce fight for the yellow jersey and we will fight for a stage win tomorrow. Sometimes the race goes in your favor and other times not. All you can do is be ready to fight another day.

And now, back to the music…

1 response for this Entry

Ingrid says:

August 07, 2010

Thanks for your Tour of Poland reports, I really liked them, as most of your blog and other writings. And also thanks for your mayonnaisse answer on my question about Polish food. ;)

It feels like the Cech Republic, I know the may. 'salads' from there.

But one thing, Xavi Tondo wouldn't have defeated our Bauke Mollema! For sure! :)

Good luck in your next races in with the journey back home.