Tour of Austria…Highway to the Danger Zone

The last couple of stages of Austria have been a little hurtin. For one, Garmin is down to only 4 riders due to a stomach bug cruising around the squad. And my long day in the mtns a couple days ago in the freezing cold turned a tight hamstring into a little tendonitis. I was pretty close to packing the next stage but made it through. And thanks to the massage work and taping job of my soigneur Alyssa, its been getting a little better each day so I’m still racing. I can’t quite really smack it when I want to but it will be ok.
Yesterdays stage turned epic on the finish circuits, with pouring rain and a massive crash near the front of the field on the descent. Guys were crashing up the embankment into the forest. Miraculously I avoided contact with the ground.
We’ve had a few run ins with cars the last couple days, both from the race and random public.  Pretty sketchy actually.  All week the jury and vip cars have been driving so close to the back of the field, almost right in with the race in several instances.  One point were were descending full gas on rain slicked roads  in a small group with cars all around us. If you slid out in a corner you would pretty much get run over.  Pretty nuts. And then once a VIP car went to pass the peloton and got wedged between the riders and the embankment, hit a rider and crashed off the side of the road. A few riders crashed hard. Luckily nobody was seriously hurt but I had to look away when it happened, happy to not know any details. In the rainy circuit yesterday we were racing full gas in the front and twice encountered an oncoming car in the road. In the pouring rain, no headlights. Its not like we were 45 minutes off the back.
I really don’t mind taking risks when its the time, when a selection needs to be made or a race needs to be won, but its another story with these sketchy car situations.
Today was a whole ‘nother mess. Both the breakaway and the peloton were misdirected off the course. We ended up on a big highway, and the breakaway appearantly was lost, like, they couldn’t find them.  So we all sat down in protest, then road neutral for a long time until reunited with the breakaway, then restarted the race with the same gap.  And then it sucked because all the adrenaline was gone, and then we raced the next 140 km in a gnarly tail wind at full speed. It hurt.
Mess of a day.
Anyways, straight forward out and back time trial tomorrow, so that shouldn’t get too screwed up. My leg feels better so
Thanks for checkin in