Will Routley Checks In From Korea

Will Routley is racing at the Tour de Korea with his team, Jelly Belly p/b Kenda. The team is using this stage race as a tune-up for the Tour of California. The Tour of Korea is a nine stage stage race, that started on April 23rd. Routley was wearing the King of Mountains jersey but after a hard fought battle, he sits in second in the KOM competition.

Routley tells us how things happened on stage 7, a 94.6 kilometer race from Pyeongchang – Yangyang.

Today we woke up to the coldest morning we’ve had so far, a nice day though. But about five minutes before the stage start it started to drizzle just a few drops, we didn’t think it would be too bad, but about 15 minutes after the start the temp was dropping and it was absolutely pouring out. We rode the stage in about 1 to 2 degrees above freezing. It was COLD!!!! so darn cold, and for proof, it turned to snow about the time we finished the stage.

So with the terrible day, it was time to make the most of it, it was aggressive all day, and finally we got a break of 16 riders with three of us in it. And the yellow jersey missed it. We just drilled it for all we were worth, Keil and I rode ourselves into the ground and set Mike up for a good finish where he was third on the day, and moved into the yellow jersey! With three of us in the break we also moved into the lead in the team’s competition, so a really successful day for us!

It took us a few hours to realize how successful, since we finished totally bonked, and in the first stages of hypothermia.
So Keil moved up to sixth on general classification and I moved into 10th! It took seven stages of riding aggressively like this, but today it happened. Now we have a rest day tomorrow, then three stages left, two of them are the hardest days of the tour. Almost there!!!!