Day Three and Leg One Results

Well I guess most of you will know by now that Robert is in 37^th place after Leg 1.

I managed to have a very brief chat with him after the scores had been announced and he confirmed that the route that he had taken was the one that I guessed.  His placing therefore was to be expected.

He also confirmed though that many (obviously not the top riders) of those above him appeared to be rookies who came in exhausted have ridden hard during the first leg.  Robert is very relaxed and riding well inside his comfort zone at the moment

He’s ahead in points of where he thought he’d be because he was able to pick up several extra bonuses.  The scoring went very well and he did not lose any significant points – only about 0.05% of his total point value because he had made a typo in the bonus code.

On the downside, his rear tyre (or should that be “tire” ?) has lost pressure over the last three days and after pumping it up, his compressor then promptly failed !! – bloody German rubbish !!

Hopefully the leak will not increase and in any case, it only needs to last a day or so as he has a tyre change booked in Denver on Saturday.

However, that in itself will be a problem as he will need to plan his entire route for Leg 2 around that tyre change appointment.  It means that whatever route he plans, unless he is REALLY lucky, it will not be the optimum route.  It’s probable therefore that he will slip down the rankings by the end of leg 2.

I’m guessing he will head west and then do the tyre change on the “way back” east towards the leg 2 checkpoint.  Of course, if that is the case, then he’s heading to the one state in the USA where “lane-splitting” aka “filtering” is legal – California.  Robert, unlike many of the USA riders  should be able to take advantage of this.

And that’s about it for now. When I spoke with him, the leg 2 bonuses had not yet been released so it’s just speculation what he’ll be up to as yet.

Leg 2 therefore will be a “holding leg” for Robert.  He just needs to make the best of it because of the scheduled tyre change and then really go for it on Leg 3 ……