Well, finally a good day for the team. Kirk got in a breakaway with Jeff and 9 other guys and they stayed away by about 7 minutes at the finish. That puts Kirk in the race lead which makes everyone very happy. It also means I'll be spending the next two days riding the front. I've spent a lot of time doing that over the last year, but I like it. It's much more fun to work to defend a race lead than to sit in the pack and wait around.

After the race we had a 4.5 hour bus transfer. We followed a twisty coastal road up to the northeastern coast of the island. The scenery was amazing. There's a very long stretch of coastline where the mountains simply fall into the ocean and, excluding the road itself, there's really no sign of civilization. But scenic or not, 4.5 hours in a bus is too much after a hard road race. We did stop at an interesting roadside shop, though. See the pictures below. Time for bed.