Astana Cycling Team

www.biciciclismo.com

Josep Jufré: Too darn hot!

It is hot! Today we spent the day in the heat. It lived up to the forecast and reached at least 40° in the shade, since the clock that we took on the bike (SRM) got to the 47° mark. Impressive!

Today we had 10 neutralized kilometers, which gave us a chance to warm up the engines, as if they weren’t already pretty hot, and I say that because we had a very fast start with a lot of attacks. I tried to get into one of them, since groups of more than five riders were forming, but with no luck, we were constantly slogging down a divided highway that seemed like it would go on forever. At the end of the climb, our teammate Grivko got into an escape, which gave him a good chance to grab a bonus second and 8^th place in the general classification, but the peloton wouldn’t allow it.

The big escape didn’t get away until after an hour of racing. It was a bit scary, too, due to the wind, so there was a little tension that translated into a pretty good tempo in the race. We climbed a short ascent, the group fell apart, although later it got back together. In the final part, Caisse were controlling things for Alejandro in a circuit with more than 20 kilometers that was also pretty tough, and the last five kilometers with climbs that were short but very hard, as well.

In the end, the winner was Manual Cardoso, the Portuguese champion who rides for the Spanish team Footon-Servetto-Fuji. They’re on a streak, since they also won in the Tour de San Luís with the Spanish rider Rafael Valls. My congratulations to those two and to the team, who, being the youngest in the ProTour, are showing the quality of their riders and have already gotten two victories.

But for me, the best moment of the day—since it was so hot, I wasn’t great—was when we crossed the finish line and were directed to the parking area used by the team cars. We sat on sofas with a parasol and our soigneur Alejandro, as we’ve gotten used to, already had fresh fruit and refreshing drinks ready for us, just in time.

Here’s a heads-up: you can see photos at https://astanafans.com. You’ll already see how we looked when we got back today, and you’ll get an idea of how hot it was and what we went through. So we refreshed, hydrated and then off to the hotel by bike.

The good news has reached us about our teammates who are doing such good training in Calpe and that Alberto really likes how it’s going. As for us here, we also want to take advantage of competing and training and to be able to reach the upcoming competitions in the best shape possible in order to be with our leader.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow’s also a very interesting stage with chances for wind and another uphill finale.

Ciao,

Josep Jufré Pou (Astana)

Englosh translation - albertocontadornotebook.info