Final - Stage 4

Tour of Belize

Well after a great day yesterday finally bouncing back from the heat, we had a rough day in the saddle.

We started the day with Dustin spending the night being sick with food poisoning and not being able to start the finally stage. This resulted in a change of plans for our attempt to win the KOM jersey on the last day. After a very quick start, it was apparent the defending KOM team knew what our only strategy was and they weren’t going to let it happen. Brad and Dustin were within range of either of them taking the KOM jersey if they could win the 3 KOMs for the day and the current leader not getting any points. This would mean that they would have to continually attack the KOM leader until one of them could get a breakaway to stick without the leader. This was perfect with either Dustin or Brad being able to take the jersey. But with Dustin out for the stage, this left Brad as the only person possible of taking the jersey away on the day. This unfortunately became a huge issue as very early into the stage, Brad also discovered that he was suffering the effects of food poisoning as well. Brad got worse as the day went on and eventually got to the point where he was struggling just to hang onto the peleton. He got dropped several times, just about got back on but then have the peleton accelerate on him. He couldn’t match the jumps and eventually got dropped permanently. Brad kept riding through it all and finished the stage and the tour.

So our strategy changed to keeping James in the GC and trying to move him up into 2nd or 1st overall. This would require putting time into either rider. This wasn’t much time (13seconds to 2nd, 18 seconds to 1st), but would mean getting some distance ahead of either rider. Colter had a great start to the day staying up front and keeping anything threatening for getting away for James. He maintained this for the first 40 miles, and then he cracked and was gone out the back. It turned out that Colter was also feeling the effects of food poisoning and just didn’t feel the effects until later in the day. Like Brad, Colter kept riding and finished the stage and tour.

James continued to show his great form and why he was our best placed rider. After the team was gone from the peleton, it came down to James to defend his GC placing. James had a little luck on his side, as the same time that Brad and Colter were struggling, so was the 2nd placed rider. He was also yo- yo’ing off the peleton continually. James’ luck continued to get better as the Yellow jersey (same team as 2nd place rider) decided that he had enough of being attacked and went to the front and started time trialing to keep the peleton from doing anything against him. This helped James as it meant that the 2nd place rider was getting further and further behind the peleton.

While several attacks continued to come, James made sure that he was with everything and not letting anything get away from him. He rode hard and put in a huge effort to finish the tour. So at the end of the day, James had a great day and was able to move up into 2nd place overall in the GC.

We had a great tour, struggled through a great deal of hardships with the heat, humidity, and finally food poisoning. The style of racing was very different than anything we see in North America. It was a great learning experience for the boys to see a different type of racing, provide some great preparation for Green Mountain, and gave the opportunity to allow the boys to experience a different culture.

The support that we have received from the organizer and the local volunteers during our stay has been fantastic and we hadn’t had any problems or concerns, other than the food poisoning. We’ve drank an unbelievable amount of water and cytomax, going through 50-80 Liters per day.

We are all looking forward to a few relaxing days in Montreal to rehydrate and get some sleep. We will be arriving into Montreal late in the evening,

Jayson Gillespie