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Howdy dudes,

Jittery Joe’s has just finished racing a pretty successful Tour de Georgia. Last Saturday we headed down to Peachtree City to get ready for stage one of the tour, and stayed in the same hotel as all the other teams. It was a pretty good experience, and some of us (maybe just me) were a bit star struck seeing all the ProTour teams arriving at the same time as us, including the stars of the cycling world like George Hincapie, Tyler Hamilton, and Gilberto Simoni, to name a few!

Stage one meant we got to race against all these guys, as well as the rest of the field. It was awesome racing in a field with so many great teams and riders. We missed the main break of the day, but Matt put in a gallant effort to try and bridge across to it. Tommy also got the best young rider jersey for the day, after being the first young rider across the line.

Stage two had attacks coming thick and thin for the first hour, before Austin went solo. Two others bridged across to him, and the trio stayed away for ages, maybe 100 miles or so, into a howling head wind! Kingers was rewarded for his great ride, earning the day’s most aggressive rider jersey. Not a bad start for the small Jittery Joe’s team – two jerseys in two days!

Stage three was on from the gun again, and Willo had the whole field in pain with his relentless attacking. He was in a small break early on, but Discovery team wasn’t happy with it, so brought it back. The attack that followed had big Elk and Cody in it, but unfortunately the big hitters decided they wanted to go full gas over the first categorised climb of the day, and halved the size of the break on it. The other unfortunate thing was that this was to be the break away of the tour, with the lead group arriving in Chattanooga about thirty minutes ahead of the rest of the field.

Stage four was the time trial, and with our GC hopes all but gone, everyone safely rode well inside the time cut.

Stage five was the dreaded Brasstown Bald stage. We busted out the limited edition white outfits for the stage, and boy did we look the goods! Stage five seemed to be our best shot at stage success with Cesar being a mountain goat, and having won this same stage in 2004 for Jittery Joe’s. We again missed the break, but put in a great ride on the front of the peloton to keep the break within striking distance as we entered the main climb of the day. The break was caught on the climb, but unfortunately Cesar’s separated shoulder and broken wrist held him back from being able to repeat his 2004 performance. It was a great experience riding up the hill though, with all the fans shouting out their support of Jittery Joe’s, and also a few of them providing a much needed push too!

Stage six was super fast, as CSC and Toyota wanted to set up their sprinters for the stage win. There were a few heavy legs in the team after the day before! We finished the race on a circuit through the picturesque Stone Mountain National Park. It was a pretty messy finish, and we ended up with five riders in the top 25 placings. It was a pity we didn’t have any top ten finishers, but Big Elk and Cesar weren’t far off.

Stage seven was the final stage of the tour, and we raced in downtown Atlanta, through the bicentennial Olympic park. We again had a great turn out of fans, which gave us a great boost, and the team put in another great ride. Neil was in the first two moves of the day, before Cesar instigated the longest breakaway of the day. He spent about six laps off the front with just two other riders, before being caught in the final five kilometers. It was then time for us to try and set up Evan for the uphill sprint finish. The big Elk pulled off our first top ten finish of the week, coming in eighth, and rubbing shoulders with George Hincapie all the way to the line. Cesar also pulled off the most aggressive rider jersey for the stage to help cap off a great week of racing for the team.

The team would like to thank our great support staff, John and Sam for the great work on the bikes all week, Thomas and Tonya for being the greatest soigneurs we could ask for, Tom for organizing the RV for the week, and Larry for driving. Also a HUGE thank you to all of our fans, who’s constant cheering and support really helped lift us another level! Thanks also to anyone else I may have forgotten!

Laters,
Tommy

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