I got a call from Chad today as he was on the road after leaving the venue.
170 miles behind him..........here's the short story:
Day 1- Prologue was kinda weird. It didn't count for time, only for positioning at the start of stage I. The wierd thing is that is was a group start and positioning didn't matter.....? Anyways, he said it was good for aclimating.
Day 2- Chad was in the lead around the half way point and......bonk! Turns out too many electrolites is a bad thing. He said he lost over 20 minutes in the last 20 miles .
Day 3- Chad takes the stage and gains back a little time heading into the last day. Only down side is that somewhere along the way his shifting became a bit out of whack and had a few hitches in it.
Day 4- Turns out the bad shifting was due to a broken frame!!!! Therefore causing him to limp along(including walking up a major climb) until where there was the specialized warranty guy with an s-works stumpy ready to trade him out. He road the stumpy the rest of the way home.
He finished the race in fourth and felt confident he would have taken the last stage and potentially contended for the overall if the bike issues did not occur.
I would say it was a pretty impressive effort, especially being the first time out in an event like this. From what I understand, all the others in his race are very experienced in this type of event.
Nice work Torque!!!!!!!
(Torque, if I butchered any part of the story, feel free to make a correction post!)
Levi