Yesterday was by far the best day of this tour for us! Now that we are getting some race experience with each other it is becoming more and more apparent we have a good potential to compete at the highest levels sooner rather than later.

Our equipment hassles continued yesterday. We are using a lot of Mavic Neutral. Lam is riding a Campagnolo Veloce bike that has a rear derailleur that needs to be replaced along with a worn out shifter. The wheels that Mavic puts together are designed to work with both Shimano 10 and Campagnolo 10 speed systems. It is amazing that it works as well as it does. Lam has a new chain but the bike shifts poorly none the less. We put in a real campy wheel and it worked much better so we went with a lightweight American Classic rear wheel with an 11-25 on it to be sure he was able to climb in the big chainring.

Unfortunately, the relatively new freehub body gave away under Lam’s pressure and freewheeled in both directions. Mavic did a wheel change and we got him back in before the climb.

During the climb Lam rode with the best and in the end finished 1:13 down on the leaders. The decent was the kind you pedal on and the first group had more punch in it. We should never race at this level again without the equipment that is necessary. Lam’s bike is almost 10 kilos! I will see if I can get some pictures for you to see what the others are using.

Jesus was in the 3:58 group. Once the climb was over it is unlikely you could improve your position on the course… It was another respectable showing.

One of the best things that happened yesterday was that Fausto was smart and did the right thing by minimizing his expenditure. His GC is nowhere so it did not make sense that he would go for it yesterday with today’s stage being a better fit for his current form. It is easy to talk about doing the right thing but he was able to resist burning to many matches. Fausto did a professional ride yesterday.

Today’s stage looks to be a good one for Fausto. It has 3 category 4 climbs and one category 3. This is a similar profile as the day he was able to get the 14th place finish. The thing that is not in the race manual or talked about much is that there are two sections of very steep grade before the finish. Some of the teams are going with the 11-25 just to be sure there is no gearing problems. We are following suit.

Today is the day for Fausto but we are going to hold Lam ready in case those last two pitches are hard enough to get him into a forward split. We should have Lam near the front before we hit those steep sections.

We only have our three riders left but team general classification is calculated the cumulative time of the daily top three placing. As long as we are able to finish with three riders it is legitimate to say that Mexico is able to field a team that was able to compete at this level.

These riders do feel the responsibility of representing their country. It is an honor for me to be part of such an effort. We are not going to hide in the field just to finish. These riders are leading the way for Mexico to provide further opportunity for Mexican riders.

Thanks everyone for your support. This blog had over 800 hits in the past 24 hours. I regret not being able to spend more time on it but this blog is not on my high priority list at this time.

Many thanks for the frame builder Andy Gilmour for coming out to straiten out some of our equipment issues.