American cyclist Neilson Powless of team EF Education-EasyPost is writing a journal for throughout the 2022 Tour de France. Powless recently came within four seconds of the Tour’s coveted yellow jersey, and his latest entry—written after Thursday’s sixth stage—discusses his close call.  

It meant no social media and frankly less stress after what happened on stage 5. A lot has happened but if you want me to sum up the last two stages in a word it would have to be ‘rollercoaster’. It’s been an incredible ride.

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Honestly, I don’t know how else to describe it. I keep having random rushes of emotions. At one moment I feel like I could break down and curl up into a ball and then the next moment I feel like I’m on top of the world and realizing that I’m achieving childhood dreams. My mind keeps going back and forth from those alternate states but when I’m in the race I feel like I’m still able to focus on the task at hand and racing with my teammates.

I can push it to the back of my mind when the flag drops but as soon as I get off my bike I flip between thinking ‘wow I’m second at the Tour de France to ‘man, I could have been in yellow’ and then to ‘but I’m just four seconds from yellow’. It’s so hard to describe. It’s a tug-of-war in my head.

I guess I also want to just set the record straight on a couple of things. Firstly there’s We were both racing for the team and I think the race was so chaotic with everyone operating with limited information. Bettiol and I are pretty good friends and we’d never intentionally race against each other. He just showed again today on stage 6 how much of an incredible teammate he is. He was always putting his nose in the wind for me and always yelling out for me. He was an amazing teammate today. I’ve never doubted him.

Today we threw everything at it and tried to take the jersey but at the end of the day I came up against Tadej Pogacar, and the dude is the best cyclist in the world. He’s an incredible cyclist and it’s unfortunate that I couldn’t take yellow. I have no regrets and the team put all their effort into it for me. I was proud of them and we’re still second in the Tour de France.

Behind the scenes the directors are just telling me to stay focused. They’ve realized that I’m a very practical person, so I don’t dwell on the past much. I’ve learned my lesson in previous races to just trust my body and keep my emotions in check because the differences now between getting dropped and winning all come down to split second decisions that you make throughout the day. All they can do is keep me calm and relaxed because I can get overexcited.

And looking at the overall picture, if you’d said to me during the Tour de Suisse, when there was COVID-19 and all that uncertainty, that I’d be second to Pogacar at the Tour after six stages I’d have asked you who’d crashed out. So far, as a team, we’ve made it pretty far and I just like to race my bike. I enjoy tactics and thinking on my feet and that’s what this race has been about for the last five days. Now all I have to do is trust my body that I’ve trained well enough for the mountains.

Looking ahead, my job is pretty simple. I just need to conserve my energy as much as possible and then essentially race with the favorites. To be honest, that feels like a pretty big privilege. If that plan changes in the coming days, that’s fine. I’ll adapt but I’m going to take pride in racing with the top riders.

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This article was first published by . During the 2022  the American rider  will be writing an exclusive blog for VeloNews.

The first few days in Denmark were pretty unreal and I’ve never seen crowds like that. There was so much energy from start to finish, and I’ve never seen that many people out to watch a bike race. It was an incredible experience.

It was great to have my teammate Magnus Cort out there doing his thing with the King of the Mountains jersey. That was good for team morale, and for Magnus on a personal level. It’s a pretty unique experience to have the Tour come to your country if you’re not from France, so that was awesome to have him in a jersey, scoring points and to hear everyone scream his name.

It was pretty nervous in the peloton for those first few days, but nothing too crazy happened. I’ve just been trying to keep myself at the front and out of trouble because our A goal is still Rigoberto Urán, and my main goal is trying not to cause any trouble. I’ve had some help from Stefan and the rest of the guys are helping Rigo, so we’ve still got a back-up idea for when we get to the mountains but ultimately we just want to keep everyone out of trouble.

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Getting caught out or caught in a crash can be so bad because the roads are so tight that if you’re involved, you can’t always see where you’re going to land and you can’t see who is going to hit you from behind. It’s almost easier to be at the front but everyone has the same idea so it ends up getting pretty hectic. But I’ve been enjoying everything that comes with it and all the tension that you get with the first few days of the Tour. That feeling isn’t going to last forever with what’s coming up.

Going back a few days, I was happy with my time trial in Copenhagen. It was a bit of a roulette when it came to who was sliding and who was crashing, although I think that everyone was sliding out on some of those corners. In the first 4-5km I felt great and was within seven seconds of van der Poel but in the second half it became more technical and slippy. I could feel my rear wheel sliding around each corner so I had to calm down a bit. I wasn’t there to win the stage so I just took it easy because the main goal is to make it through the first week in one piece. I gave up time but it was worth it to me.

Looking ahead we’ve got another tough stage and then it’s onto the pavé. I’m feeling confident about stage 5 and Roubaix cobbles simply because we’ve got a really strong team for the terrain. Our team has been super strong on the flat and I think we’ve got the riders to put the team on their backs so that riders like Rigoberto and I just need to hold their wheels.

We’ll do our best to stay together but I’m pretty sure that there are going to be a lot of riders losing time on stage 5 because there’s only so many riders who can fit on those roads. If it’s raining then it will be a whole different ball game. Our team will just ride it as a one-day race regardless of time gaps because it could be total chaos.

My experience with cobbles is pretty limited. By limited I mean nothing at all, especially at the pro level. I did race Paris-Roubaix as a junior but I crashed out before we got to the pavé. There were a few cobbles at worlds last year. I’ve raced U23 Flanders, and there were a few cobbles there. We’ve got plenty of guys around us who have that experience so I’ll just try and feed off them.

An update on Ruben who is pretty banged up: the midnight stretching has ceased, mainly because he’s having a hard time moving. He’s a little slower getting around but I do my best to wait for him at meal times and departure times because I know that he can’t help running a minute or two late and I feel bad leaving him behind. I’m trying to keep him company so we’re either on time or a few minutes late as a unit.

The team are taking great care of him though, checking his wounds, and helping him as much as possible. I feel like this is the most comfortable that I’ve ever been on a bike because I’m seeing a chiropractor every day and getting a massage after each stage. Ruben just needs a bit of time but he’s relaxed and saving energy whenever he can. He’s got me for support too.

The post Neilson Powless’s Tour de France Blog: Morale Is High After Three Stages in Denmark appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.