First taste of Estonian racing

Now back at our rented house for the night after a disappointing stage 2 in the Tour of Estonia.

I arrived with another one of the SiS lads on Saturday morning which gave us a couple of days to relax and adjust to the Estonian way of life. I hadn't expected it to be such a nice place! I was presuming it was going to be similar to Poland but  it's a lot more modern and definitely nicer people!

Stage 1 was a team time trial over a 19km flat course with a few slight drags. We went out steady enough and rode pretty well as a team, especially considering it was the first time we'd all ridden together. We were 9th team off and were sitting in the virtual yellow jersey until this man - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Kirsipuu and his team beat us. We finished 5th in the end which wasn't bad, and it was only small time gaps which we can definitely close later in the week and hopefully take a leaders jersey!

Stage 2 was a 133km road race with 3 intermediate sprints and 2 king of the mountain sprints; 1 up a gravel road and the other at the steep 25% finishing climb. I didn't really know what to expect. It was new experience racing on the road in Eastern Europe - I have raced in Poland but only on the track - and I have to say I didn't really like the way they raced. It was just non-stop attacks for the whole day. I was very active early on, following most of the moves and eventually after about 60km of trying I eventually got in a 9 man move that went up the road! We got a maximum gap of 1 minute and 10 seconds after sitting at 20 seconds for a good 10km. One of the professional Estonian teams brought guys to the front of the bunch and started closing the gap. It didn't help the time gap or my legs the fact that only 3 other guys would actually pull through and the other that were sitting on would take it in turns to attack us and just generally F everything up!
Once the gap was down to below 30 seconds and after yet another irritating and pointless attack I decided enough was enough and just didn't follow. I waited for the bunch which took a little longer than expected and I hoped I was going to regret my decision. In the end it didn't really matter for two reasons; firstly the break got brought back about 5km after I came back and secondly I was sat right at the back coming into the offroad KOM and that was the end of my race! I managed to claw my way up, in contact and then the bunch split. Waved goodbye to the bunch and rolled in with the big man Ain - the World's heaviest Ironman!

So overall not a good day but I'm hoping I'll have the legs to get on the podium in a stage and help out the other lads!

Goal for the week: Get an SiS ride in a leaders jersey!

Adios!