STAGE 2....

Flat and fast again...that was how stage 2 worked itself out.

The first 60km was on like never before as the field tried to establish a break away group that they were satisfied with. There were a few times that it looked like it was going to work out, but many over ambitious and unsatisfied domestic teams kept forcing the issue and making sure they were represented. It was an weird finish to the attacking, when Justin England (Toyota) rolled off the front and suddenly found himself with a 3min gap....he was later joined by another 2 and the trio worked their way out to 7mins. Astana, High Road, CSC and Gerolsteiner went to the front and began to bring the gap down slowly.

With 20km to go the field was all back together for the finishing circuits around Augusta. A long and gradual uphill was countered by a crazy fast decent that meant trying to hold good position was a tough ask for the smaller teams.

A mass pile up with 700m to go caused some chaos, but it didnt have any effect on the winners for the day. The true sprinting talent of the field came to the front and JJ Haedo took the sprint ahead of Greg Henderson. Ivan Domingez held onto his GC lead after running 3rd.

Personally...well maybe 15th. Nothing to write home about really. Had good legs for the sprint again, but when BJM ran out of legs with 1200m to go i was too far back to do anything heroic. Still positive signs for the flat stages and the team is looking and feeling good for the remainder of the tour....except maybe Jeremy who came off 2nd best in an incident with the Toyota team car....Have to wait and see how he wakes up in the morning.....