Nature Valley Grand Prix:


Its always hard to pick yourself up to race smaller races after competing infront of 100's of thousands of spectators.
I seem to be able to do it because I love racing. I may grizzle a bit to myself or Katie about how I have a massive dose of CBF about this race but when push comes to shove...ill always race my guts out to try win if im in a situation to do so.

And so it was with this race. I ended up with the yellow going into the last day...the last day was a circuit race. We defended my yellow jersey well and with the last time up the 50m wall I sagged to the back of the group thinking that alls well....I have won the stage race.....but ohhhhh nooooo.....the officials had different ideas. It turns out that if u finished 5th in the stage you lost 5secs to the winner...if you finished 7th you lost 7secs. I finished 12th in the bunch up the final climb....so you guessed it....i lost 12secs.....SO GAY! I cant believe how pissed off I was. Its a small race and I had won some awesome races....but man was I upset. Still cant explain why but I guess Im so competitive that having it taken away by some stupid ruling was what upset me.
The best thing though....my good mate Karl ended up winning. If there was anyone I can handle losing to its him...he is the nicest guy I have met in a long time. The other good thing...the photo above was the final overall podium for HealthNet Maxxis.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/jun06/naturevalley06/?id=results/naturevalley061