Wow, what a tight box Gurney is in. What shall he do?

Now legally he rode a great Lake Sunapee loop time, so whatever time he takes is totally legal and on the up and up. However the chess match that has been played puts gurney in a tightt predicament.

Gurney can totally take the win if he posts his time, he would get the 3 points for the win, and put 2+ minutes on the second place and even more to us middle of the packers. Will that isolate him? Now the leaders jersey on his back he would be a target and he would be attacked on the climbs.

He does know that he may lose a bit of time on the next stage in the pinnacle mountains, so the jersey may be only shortlived, but hey its the leaders jersey, its supposed to make everyone ride a notch above. ON Wednesday Gurney appeared to have leadership on his mind, as Lovely tried to drop Gurney on the Eastside, couch, snake alley downhill, only to find Gurney singing behind him the whole way.

On the other hand Gurney could ride a solo Lake Loop and put up a respectable time and possible still take the stage win (1:02 is in his grasp with favorable conditions) yet not put a whole bunch of minutes on anyone.

What to do? tick-tock, tick-tock.........

Ride hard Gurney, ride hard.

An East/Southeast wind this evening made for semi-favorable conditions for a solo ride. I battled a headwind in spots, but that was generally early and I did get a few tailwind boosts on the ride back.

1:00:29.7. Almost 2 minutes off my prior PB.

I think with no wind, or a light south wind, and maybe a little better rest/recovery prior, I could break an hour.

It is worth reporting that Dan pulling you is way, way better than any tailwind! And thanks PJ - your post was very good at inciting some extra effort.

Cheers,

MG

My opinion, he should post his time from before the stage. The intent of the stages is to ride on the scheduled night if possible. Knowing that is not possible for everyone to make it, we made rules so all could continue playing even if they had to miss a night. I do believe if you need to miss a night, you should complete the stage as close to the scheduled date as possible. Having said all that, if Mark wants to wait until the next rainy day with temps in the mid-40's, I would be OK with that.

So post your 59 whatever it was and claim your leader's jersey. It will be good for your sponsors if you to get the extra exposure. Then ride hard and don't look over your shoulder, because we will be gunning for you.
 
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Too late - posted the 1:00:29. Either time would have been "legal", but I'm actually quite proud of tonight's effort, so there it is. I don't imagine it will be too particluarly difficult to catch me - but won't we have fun!

Great ride! humina....humina......

Does Gurney know that the leaders jersey comes with pockets full of stuff? Brian did the ride with all the jersey contents and then shared it with us mortals at the end. Isn't it a tradition that the one taking off the jersey gets to fill the pockets for the new person?