Day 7 continued

Wow, finally getting some time to post more. By now, everyone knows how the race ended, so I will skip the obvious and continue on from the last post where we were setting up.

Our riders were spread out for start times by over an hour, due to their overall standings in the GC. The truck and RV got there early on order to set up, which means hurry up and wait for the riders to arrive and get ready. My biggest challenge was trying to keep the RV cool... as you may recall we blew up the generator a few days back, so I was on the hunt for shore power. I was trying to sponge off of a box close by, but every time that I plugged in and started the AC, I would pop the main breaker and take out about 6 merchants' power, which they really didn't appreciate. We finally had them run us a separate line, which did the trick.

Levi flew in his personal coach whose name I can't remember to prep him and ride in the car during the time trial. They wanted me to be at the first timing station and get splits for the riders that we were most concerned about - Kloden, Teejay and Christian. They also wanted Finney's split time, because he had already gone and completely torn up the track.

Of course, they only knew where the timing station was from the perspective of driving around the track, so they decided that I should jump in the chase car with them and follow Peter Velits as he raced... they would stop quickly at the timing station and drop me off. So, I got to ride in the chase car while Peter raced, which was pretty darn cool.

For the record, Phinney's split time was 8:38, Teejay 9:00 and Christian 9:00. Levi went through at 9:09, so we pretty well knew right then that he wasn't going to be able to retain the overall yellow jersey as he only had 9 seconds to work with. The final time showed Levi losing 33 seconds to Christian, which of course knocked him down to 3rd in the GC. The good news was Peter finished 4th overall, very respectable for a young and upcoming rider.

Lot's of work to do after the race. Bernard C acted as Levi's escort for the next couple of hours while he dit the podium and press tour, while the rest of us packed up and headed for the hotel. One hiccup was that the truck left before me, with my keys, so they had to come back and that cost us an hour which sucked.

Back at the hotel, it was time to dismantle and pack everything, and give back the RV and the cars. We also had over a dozen bikes to dismantle and pack, along with probably 40 wheels, tools, helmets, and on and on.

When Levi got back to the hotel, he made a point of coming back to the pit and shaking all of our hands and thanking us for the hard work. He was truly disappointed in his final standing, and felt like he had let us all down. I did get him to sign a jersey for me, which will go on my wall at home.

He also insisted that we all go out for dinner. By the time we were packed and grabbed showers, we ended up eating at 9:00 at a burger joint downtown. Levi and the whole team finally let their hair down a little, wolfing down burgers and fries and washing it down with a few beers and wine. It was fun.

We then made our way to The Tavern for the wrap-up party. It seemed like all the riders were there and having a great time - especially the Phinney/Teejay gang, 'nuff said. My highlight was getting a chance to talk to Tyler Farrar a bit - truly a nice guy and I think he has a huge future ahead of him. I am not the photo/autograph type too Canadian I guess, so nothing to share there.

Monday was the drive back to Durango with the rest of the local crew, have dinner with Alison on the boat and SLEEP.