Nara and Shuzenji

After stage 1 in Osaka we struggled on the following two days of tough circuits. The Nara stage, which was run on a technical circuit around a damn, was impressively fast. After a comfortable and lackadaisical neutral, in which the race actually went off course, the race exploded into high gear as we hit the race circuit. The field stretched out into a long line of 100 riders as the pace on the front never relented and the constant corners made it challenging to move about. For most of the day I rode in the top twenty riders, making sure never to drift towards the back. A little bit of wiley riding in making sure to always hit the climb near the front kept me in the front longer than otherwise would have been possible. Although I ended the day in the second group I can’t say that I was too disappointed with how the legs were turning over.

After a “rest day”, which was nothing of the sort as we had a seven hour transfer, we tackled the third stage in Shuzenji at the Japan Cycle Sports Center. What an incredible circuit; it was nothing but climbing and descending for ten kilometres each lap. Not only was it descending but the descent were technical with decreasing radius turns on each one; there was just nowhere to rest. On top of that we rode 26 cogs, and actually needed to use them. Again, like in Nara, it was a bit of a case of survival; the peloton whittled down slowly but surely. Near to the finish I was actually not feeling too bad and with three laps to go was aggressive on the front of the race. Buck too was following the moves. Unfortunately neither of us was able to follow the final accelerations that determined the front group and once again we were left to ride in the second group on the road. Still with three days left not all was lost.