Stage 2 was a 39km race. It started with a police escort out of town for the first 5km and I started the race with a 11 second lead over Andy and Aido. I wasn't keen to try anything silly in the race and just planned on finishing as close as possible to the boys to eliminate time loss. Once the police car turned offed the race was on. The pace was high for the first 10km of fireroad and it wasn't until the single track where the pace slowed down a little. I was happy for Andy to set the pace as all I could think about was the hill climb in the afternoon and the long stage tomorrow. I really wanted to save my legs as much as possible.
Several attempts were made by Andy to get away but were chased down early on. With 5km to go 3 of us were still together. With about 2km to go there was a super technical hill climb that Andy made the smart move of pre-riding. I stuffed up towards to lower section and found I was running like crazy to try and keep up. At the top I must have been down by less than 10 seconds. I had started chasing and I was feeling like I was gaining on Andy as we approached the velodrome. As soon as I got onto the velodrome my hamstrings started to cramp from running up the last hill and hard. I actually started to ride one legged around the velodrome until I could get going again! I managed to finish 14 seconds behind which gave Andy the overall lead by 3 seconds. A well deserved win for riding the final technical climb.
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