Hi all

Well since I last wrote to you, I have had one relaxing rest day followed by 3 days of very testing mountain stages.  Thats the reason it has taken me until now to write again.  I have been arriving at my hotel each night completely sapped of energy, craving some junk food and a good sleep.

The size of the peloton is a good sign of how difficult it has been, we are now down to 155 riders, after over 25 guys have called it quits in 3 days.  FDJ was also effected by this as we lost Seb Chavenal and Sandy Casar for different reasons, it hasn’t been a great time for us.

From the rest day in Almeria we climbed into what is known as the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  These mountains have a very airy feeling about them, often not as steep as you find in the Alps or Pyrenees but damn they are long.  On stage 13, it took the non climbers (commonly known as the ‘grupetto’) over 1h40min to climb the final climb.  That’s a long time going up hill I tell you.

So we are now two weeks through the Vuelta, it seems like a whole world away from the stages in Holland at the start of the race.  Now for the riders that are left Madrid is really in sight.  Hopefully we will be in for a couple of slightly easier days now, though for me it will be my chance to race a day for myself with an attempt at a breakaway.  I have been really happy with my form in the mountains, seeing a lot of other riders in difficulty before me has given me a big boost.

Though there have been some very testing times, as was the start of stage 13, when we went uphill for the first 43kms.  We all knew it would hurt like hell, I even warmed up for the stage, had a gel on the start line and got ready to suffer for the first 2hrs of the race.  A group of 30 split of the front and Caisse d’Epargne set an increadible tempo not to let them go too far.  While us flat landers just chewed our handlebars hoping not to get dropped.  These starts are a real mental test, your legs feel like they are going to explode as you go 110% just to hold the wheel, and you don’t even want to think about the 5hrs of racing you have left.

Ok it’s that time again, I hope to write again soon from a days racing at the front of the pack.

Cheers

Tim