This Did Not Go WellI

I may have been smiling, but I was seriously feeling squished at that moment.

Mechanic Kevin Grove and me on the way to the start.

The BMC Racing Team bus broke down today.

That is never a good thing. And this has happened to me once before, at the 2011 edition of Paris-Nice. It must happen more often than I want to thing, because immediately the soigneurs sprung into action when it happened: unloading lunches, rider suitcases, etc., and hustling the riders themselves into the three team cars and van.

The rest of the day went OK. On the plus side, I was in the team car. Team car No. 1, in fact. And we were second position in the caravan. On the negative front, we were in the mountains where phone service is always spotty and things I wanted to get done on the computer would have to wait for a day when becoming carsick was less of an option.

So that's about how the day went. And already it's 11:35 at night. So I am going to cut this short. Let's hope the bus makes its return from the repair shop by the end of Tuesday's stage (as promised).

We were this close to the seaside late in the race.

Look closely and you'll see the BMC Racing Team car I was riding in.

This was dinner. I did eat the vegetables and the chicken. It was quite good.

Not a bad spread at breakfast. I did not eat the chocolate donuts.

This was the menu for dinner tonight. Not much that I liked.

Part of my breakfast.

Spinach/pea soup for dinner.

Kevin Grove's little good luck charm. He had a brief stint on the dashboard before the race.