All without knowledge on turns or bad surface. I felt in control and saw later that on the 22 km downhill segment I realized the 7th time of the day. I’m happy I acted that way because although the descent was very, very bumpy, the bike did a perfect job going down fast without any risks. I was too busy to come here to make concerns about the state of the gravel in Utah. The day before I heard something about washboards and I didn’t care at all. Whatever. Happy with my effort we hit the downhill. I went exactly the tempo I could hold for one hour to the top and found myself in the third group at position 12. So I decided to play it smart and do my tempo. 450 watts is a lot for me on sea level but on 2500 meters way above a sustainable tempo for me. I saw the power we were pushing and knew I had to calm down. This guy is a maniac and he just started going without looking back. Keegan is the leader of this Grand Prix by a big margin and today he showed why once again. Pete Stetina started to ramp up the pace once it got more steep and we hit the gravel. We used the first 15 km as a warm up before the real first climb started. Following this pattern we rolled out pretty easy. I already noticed during the pick up of my numbers, that there was no such thing as stress in Utah. The Crusher has a really mellow atmosphere compared to Unbound. I got my coffee from the nearest gas station traveling to the start. I was feeling good cruising in my rental car and ready to suffer. I took the oats in a ziplock from home and got the milk from a 7 eleven on the way in. My breakfast consisted of real “travel ninja oats’ from the microwave in my hotel room. Jetlag did its job and I was alive and kicking way before it sounded. I didn’t even need my alarm which was set at 4 AM to wake up. After a quick shave of my legs, necessary as it was the first time since Unbound, I was in bed by 9 pm. I opted for the light bike because of all the climbing. Chris, the Specialized offroad team’s mechanic, had my Crux for me race ready. Travel went smooth and I was in time in Beaver to pick up my numbers. I got some last minute advise on nutrition from Pete Stetina (no hydration pack as there would be plenty of water on course) and I would run the same tires as in every race. I was going to climb the same amount of meters in one day as in the whole month after Unbound training at home. I was curious if my body would hold this amount of stress.
Coming straight from sea level this was an extra gamble.
A hight I never reached during a single stage at the Tour the France or Giro d’Italia. Lots of climbing (3000 vertical meters) and the start was at 2000 meters altitude while the finish was at 3150 meters. The other one was that the race was designed as a hard climbing stage in the Tour the France. It was very tight and one of the reasons for my doubts. This plan only worked if there was no delay or whatsoever during travel or I wouldn’t even make it to the start line. Saturday was raceday and Sunday I would fly out again. I would fly in Friday from Amsterdam, pick up my rental car in Salt Lake City airport and drive the 3 hrs towards Beaver, Utah. The difference in time zones helped me with my planning as my Friday actually contained 32 hours. I didn’t want to abandon the ship for too long and decided to fly in at the very last moment. As I’m currently busy making podcasts before and after every Tour the France stage, I couldn’t leave Europe for too long as this is an important project for Live Slow Ride Fast Media. The reason for my doubts was my schedule. Maybe I was going to stretch it too much this time. But last Thursday night, 12 hours before departure to Utah for Crusher in the Tushar I started to doubt. I really thought I was be able to make it. That was the reason to attack 120 miles to go at Unbound. If things get hard I just trust that the body will hold everything together. I put it through many grand tours, hard races and ferocious training camps. I pretend to know my body can handle a lot of stress.