Cascade Classic.

I've been trying not to use the "H" word this year, but lets just say this race has been difficult so far.  Perhaps being the first big race back after a mid-season break, the first few stages here have been a shock to the system.  The prologue went pretty crappy for me, we'll maybe just highlighted the fact I'm not a prologue specialist!  It was short at only 2miles and was pretty much over before you knew it.  Still it was a nice way to open up the legs.  Stage one was a real kick in the pants with some major climbing to be done.  My role was to look for the early breaks and I pretty much spent an hour going back and forth trying to do so.  This brought us right up until the first berg of the day, being a solid 30km ascent over McKenzie Pass.  Right at the bottom a group did finally slip away, but at that point had didn't have much left to hit it again.  Nonetheless it didn't last too long so it worked out pretty well. 

 The McKenzie Pass climb was solid, and even though I was able to stay in the front 30 odd i was suffering pretty badly at some points as we crested over the top through the lava fields.  Decent was super fun and then soon enough we were headed along the valley before the final 10km to the finish up Three Creeks.  At this point I watched a small group slip away with Collier in it which was perfect for us being our main GC guy.  At the base of the climb Holowesko Partners and United drilled it and soon enough I was in difficulty and got popped with 5km to go.  Definitely tough to be there at both ends of the race after chasing breaks all morning.  So my day was done and I ended up just rolling it home in hope for a better day ahead.

Today we raced the 16mile Skyliner TT and still awaiting results.  To be honest I'd be stoked with a top 50 result after a tough season of TT'ing so we'll see how we go.