Glad to say that day by day things are getting better.
My head injury seems to be coming along and no complications other than some swelling in the face.
Shoulder is still not very mobile but getting easier to get out of bed.
I've been keeping up with the race and in contact with Robbie to see how the team has been fairing with out me. Before I left I told Robbie I had a feeling Gert would step up to the plate for him on the 4th stage. And he did with perfection. It took a lot of coaching from Robbie, but it sounds like he was able to control Gert's power.
Little History with Gert is that they guy is very powerful and fast(very fast), but sometimes hard to control his power to use it at the right time. He is young and sometimes lacks the confidence and experience of when to make the right move. And in the tour with all the crowds it very hard to talk and keep in communication so your almost on auto pilot.
So Robbie tells me that he told Gert he needed to jump with 400 meters from the finish and get him to under 200 meters just around the bend. Gert did it almost to perfection and jumped with 420 meters, dropping Robbie off exactly in position where he felt he could drive it all the way to the line.
It was also cool to see Robbie dedicate the victory to me as I couldn't be there for him. He knew how much it meant to me and how hard it was for me not to be there. He also knew exactly what happened in the crash so he was amazed to see me walking after such a thing.
We also talked about the 5th stage and what happened. Sounds like Gert lost a little concentration on where exactly the finish was an thought he saw 200 meters to go when it really was 600 meters. You could see that with 300 meters to go he was out of steam and Robbie had no choice but the wait and see if he could jump on another wheel as they came by.
I think that also caught the others by surprise and they came by maybe a bit slower than normal making it easy to sling shot from further back like Friere did. If Gert would have timed his efforts correctly it would have been impossible for any one to come from that far back. But when Robbie had not choice but to allow the speed to drop it was just what happens. Just like the stage Casper won, he came off my wheel from behind to sling past Bonnen and Robbie as the slowed.
This is Gert's first Tour and is still getting the hang of it. I have a feeling he will be able to put things together at least one more time for Robbie. 2 stage wins is not so bad I told Robbie and he said with a small laugh, "yeah your right".
I told Robbie that it killed me not being there to really get things down right, but the pain was also killing me too so there was no way I could be there now.
Still plenty of stages for Robbie and I will keep a close eye on things.
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