Starting 2012 With Maximum Misery

Well, that was a fun day.  The peloton kicked off the 2012 season here at the Tour de San Luis with a memorable first stage, although its one Id like to quickly forget!  Lets just say I found out why one of our team cars has the snorkel on it.  San Luis threw the most atrocious weather it could at us to welcome us to the region.  In fact, I would rate it as one of the top 3 coldest times Ive ever had on a bike.  I was really on the edge for a little while, If I hadnt been able to get a new rain jacket and rain gloves I would have been toast.  Needless to say, we had every factor except for snow.  Pouring rain most of the time, with a section of hail in there for a bit.  It was so miserable that the peloton could hardly race, we just rode slowly curb to curb in survival mode until the feedzone when we thankfully started to pick up the pace a bit.  But until then, riding easy while soaking wet doesn’t keep you very warm.  sometimes I would just ride in the wind to the side just to get warm again! Of course there were a lot of crashes today as well, despite the nearly the entire route being out and back on a straight highway.  At one point, I was taken out in a big pile up, then was chasing back on guttered out in a crosswind just getting completely drenched by the team cars just to our side.  That was incredible fun.  Amaazingly it dried up for the last 50km, at which point the crosswinds really heated up and it was a full gas in the gutter for the next hour, to which my hypothermic waterlogged legs had not much of a response.  Our GC contenders were safe in the winning bunch, but the rest of us were behind, missing out on an opportunity for our sprinter Viviani.  The only thing that could have made the day more miserable is if it was actually raining as we started.  It was pouring rain 20 min before, dry at the start, and then commenced again about 4km into the race.  so, you know, that was nice at least.  Its always the worst to START in the rain. you can put up with 5 hours of rain easier if you at least start out dry.  I do want to find out how the moto camera guy was feeling…he was sitting on the back of a moto all day wearing…a tank top.  He was either totally screwed or just a true badass.

To continue the less than pleasant day, we drove an hour back to the hotel crammed 5 people in a car.  I was glad to see even Nibali was tired after the stage, cuz I was hammered.  He was fast asleep even as the stereo was blasting the Village People song Y-M-C-A!