PC Stages 1 & 2

Those were two fantastic days of racing.  I feel this sums it up:

And... boom goes the dynamite

Yeah, this race has already been blown up.  Not in the way that one person's wrapped up the W, but a lot of people have crossed themselves off.

Stage 1

First of all, let me just say this race shows off our majestic state wonderfully.  The scenery around Aspen made me want to go there.  And I live in the same state to begin with.  Think about the people that live crappy places.  Anyways, this stage ended up going down the way everyone expected, but it didn't look like it for a while.  After joining a failed breakaway attempt a little more than 5km from the finish, Sagan looked like that might have been his go at it, and it would end up between Carter Jones and George Bennett, the 2 remaining out in front.  But the peloton caught on with 1 km to go, Sagan sprinted right around Greg Van Avermaet, and locked up another victory.  GVA adds another 2nd place finish to his August, with 3 runner-ups in the recent T-o-Utah.

Sagan doing his thing for the crowd

I took from this stage a couple things: 1) Sagan came ready to rumble.  Many of the Europeans showed up last week, and are using this as a training ground for the late-season races.  Peter came 3 weeks early, powered over the climbs, and claimed a rare leader's jersey for himself.  2) Andy Schleck seems to be continuing to improve form, being one of only 17 riders who ended up on the same time.  3) Pretty much all the players were right there, including Tejay and Tommy D, with Joe Dombro, defending champ CVV and Dave Zabriskie just 5 s back and 4) Even though it's cool the TdF winner shows up, again they're not showing up with their A game.  Froome back almost 5 minutes after 1 stage.

Stage 2

Now things get really real.  The early ascent over Independence Pass was really just because you have to do Independence Pass.  It was too early to mean anything.  Too bad a summit finish there would be impossible to pull off, logistically.  After the descent and rollout toward Hoosier Pass, a 15-man break got clear of the the peloton.  The break contained 4 people who were on the same time after stage one, including Andy and the young American Lawson Craddock, one of my new favorites.  On the bottom slopes of Hoosier, Lachlan Morton took off, and was eventually caught on the descent by Craddock and the veteran Matthias Frank.

After a sweep through Breck, a nasty little gut punch of Moonstone road up to Boreas Pass Road caused the real damage on the day.  Frank took off, followed closely by Morton, and dropping Craddock.  And Peter Sagan proved he cares not for your labels.  The "sprinter" led the "peloton" over "the" top, just 40 seconds behind with a few km to go.  The man is impressive.  And, well, he came to play.  Frank kept his lead to the finish line, but needed 5s to go in to yellow jersey.  Sadly for him, he chose to celebrate instead of power through the finish, and that may have cost him.  Morton goes in to yellow, 2 seconds over Frank.  Sagan and Tejay came in together between those leaders and Craddock, and now are tied at 3rd overall, +11 seconds.

Thanks, random dude, for bringing the Buffalo to the race!!

More takeaways?  Tejay is back in form, for sure.  I think he'll be pleased to be +11", with the "sprinter" ahead of him, and most of the week in sight.  And I think it's not impossible for Sagan to hang around and be high up in the GC.  The stage to BC and the TT will still tear him up, but he had the best climbing legs of the bunch up Moonstone, so who knows?  That's right, nobody knows.  If they did, this wouldn't be any fun.  Also, fan presence has been amazing.  All 3 summits looked packed on TV.  WTG, CO.

Biggest takeaway?  I managed not to look up ANYTHING between work and getting home and watching the stage on DVR.  It took a tremendous amount of self control.  One of my proudest moments.

Parting Thoughts: This: http://theairuphere.com/2013/08/19/having-some-fun-with-little-brother/