Neil Shirley Diary Tour De Beauce – Stage 6
6/17/08 - We awoke to a chilly wet morning for the final day of Beauce. Not exactly the weather you hope for after a week of racing. But, we really have been lucky with the weather so far this tour so I guess I don’t have any room to complain. As we made the drive to Quebec City the weather started drying up and everyone’s spirit went up.
The teams plan for the day was to have Ben Kneller and I help Matt Shriver get into the breakaway. We figured that the race would play out like yesterday. An early break would get a few minutes and as long as there wasn’t a GC contender in the break Symmetrics wouldn’t have any reason to catch it by the finish. Matt and Evan were feeling the best out of everyone on the team but the course had a little too much climbing for Evan to be a contender so all the pressure was on Matt. I think from now on we need to put more pressure on Matt because he came through big time. Matt made the 7-man breakaway on the first of nine laps. Team Type 1 put two riders in the break for the second straight day. The Breakaway everyone worked well together and built a lead of up to four minutes. Symmetrics kept control of the field and thwarted attacks from Type 1, Tecos, and Sparkasse.
Going into the final lap Chris Jones of Team Type 1 attacked on the climb. No one was able to go with him but the break stayed together and worked to bring him back. This was the Type 1’s team plan all along, since Jones is off the front their other rider, Matt Wilson can sit on and not do a lick of work. Jones maintained his lead until the last time up the climb with 2 kilometers to go. Matt Wilson immediately attacked at the bottom of the climb and got the 10-second gap he needed to hold on until the line to take Type 1’s first win of the race. Matt Shriver narrowly missed second as he and a Sparkasse rider came to the line together. Matt had an outstanding ride on a really hard course. I was so happy to see him on the podium, what a great way to finish off the race.
It has taken the pressure off of me having the other guys step it up a notch. With one stage win and another podium it turned out to be a pretty good week for the team even without Trent in the race and myself being a non-factor. I pulled out of the race yesterday after I was sure that the break Matt was in was going to stick.
I fly out for Tour de Nez tomorrow afternoon. This is a 4-day stage race in the Reno/Tahoe area that runs from Wednesday-Saturday. Once I’ve had a couple of recovery days I will evaluate whether I’m even going to race or not. I know I need a big block of rest so I’ll see whether that starts this week or if I can wait another week.
After Tour de Nez the fun stuff begins, the training. I will be looking ahead to the end of the season with only four races that I’m focused on; Tour of Utah, Colorado Stage Race, USPRO road race, and finally Tour of Missouri. These all come within five weeks of each other so it is a perfect target. I will be doing a full altitude camp getting ready for Utah and Colorado and then hopefully reaping the benefits of altitude at USPRO the following week.
Thanks for reading!
