Robbie Hunter’s Prologue: “Are we jinxed?”

Yesterday (Saturday, 30th June 2012) was the Tour De France’s first event- the Prologue. Ultimately the first stint to separate the men from the girls…..sorry Robbie. (Wink, wink.) It’s a short (less than 8km) individual race against the clock. Riders are in the red zone for ALL of the 8km’s. The winner wears the first yellow jersey (leader) for the opening Stage 1- Sunday’s race.

Okay- so I know you didn’t come here to read what i have to say- you came to read the MAN! Here we go….

So the TDF has officially started and the prologue is behind us.

Honestly I’m rather happy that tomorrow is another day. After my Giro Prologue which was about double the distance where I finished 15th I think (bad memory, sorry), I was quiet keen to knock out a good ride here.

I got up early did a good 45 minute session on the trainer to get rid of the lazy legs and get my head in the game for the prologue in the afternoon.

At this point I was gonna have a great ride. Well, that’s what I was telling myself.

By the time we finally got to the start area and team bus- everything was set up for us and I was about 1h30mins away from go time. I was the first off for tour team and I was intent on showing some of our specialists up, just like in the Giro!

I grabbed my bike and started to warm up,I did a few laps of the course so I could get all the corners in my head and really know what to expect, where to go full gas where to slow down and so on and so on.

By the time I was done I was really convinced a top 20 was no problem.

Finally after all the waiting and the hype I hit out at exactly 14:15. I started like a man possessed and actually felt good… The few times I actually looked at my Garmin 500 I was doing between 50 and 60km/h….I was pretty happy! The cobble section in the race- I hated and it seemed like I was not going forward at all but I got through.

(Photo taken from the http://www.slipstreamsports.com/photos)

Long story short I was giving it all!

1km to go I managed to squeeze out a tad more and almost puked coming across the line. Something I never do ever. “Wow, I must have gone good I thought”.

(Photo taken from http://www.slipstreamsports.com/photos)

Turns out I’d have done brilliantly if I was racing the girls….

1 by 1 my time got smashed and I realized how bad I had really done. (I was even beaten by my team mate Dan Martin who ways less than 60 kgs. What the hell is that?

“Oh well, shit happens” is one of the things I have learnt in my many years of being a Pro and the other is “tomorrow is another day”.

The TDF is 20 stages long and you can ALWAYS get a chance to make good. You just need to keep on trying.

The other thing I quickly realized after thinking about the whole day was that, the last time I had such a bad start to the TDF was when I went on to have my best tour ever and win a stage!! So, if this any thing to go by I’m happy as can be and looking forward to what’s ahead!

By the way DZ my roomie AKA #69 finished in 69th place today. Weird or luck is on the way- you decide!

David Zabriskie (AKA 69er)
(Photos taken from the http://www.slipstreamsports.com/photos site)

(We were the worst two on the team so does that say something about our rooming together?)

Or it could be that we were jinxed on the way to the race….. That’s my next excuse by the way. We rode to the race with one other team mate in the car- me and DZ are convinced he might have been our bad omen. I’ve nick named him the “Black Cat”. That makes great sense? Right?

If any more bad results come my way due to his presence being in my personal space I will release a name. For now it stays anonymous. I have got to be certain 🙂

Has to be some truth to it cause how can me and DZ both have such bad rides? (More sense?)

The rest of the team did great and Ryder showed that he is “in it to win it” with his performance.

Ryder Hesjedal (photos taken from the http://www.slipstreamsports.com/photos site)

Fabian just blew us all away and showed why he is the best prologue rider in the world. I would say the best TT rider but since the arrival of Tony Martin (world champion) it is debatable.

Tomorrow is going to be a hard and interesting finish.

Got to love the patriotism of Belgium designing the Finish to suite the home town boy Phillip Gilbert. It’s really a tricky finish and you won’t see a regular bunch “quick” that we are so accustomed to in the first week of TDF.

My guess is Gilbert to attack, and Sagan possible for the win.

I’m just hoping for no rain, and want to get to the finish in one piece- so me and Tyler can hit it big the next day.

First day of TDF is always so full of stress and riders do stupid shit..

Let’s be cool guys- 20 days to go still 🙂

Later
Robbie