The 3rd stage of the AlpenTour was cut down by 20 km to avoid the high alpine snow. Thus making the estimated win time 2.5 hrs instead of 3.5. Shortening races is never cool, but in these circumstances it was a wise choice.

After being the polite Canadian in stage 1 and giving away 175 positions in the neutral start I had a different game plan today. Elbows as wide as the Mississippi I made sure no rider threatened my top 25 position in the lead out. At one point a skinny pecker head tried to ride up the ditch then chop into my spot as a sign post was quickly approaching his line. He had 3 choices, sign post, my elbow in his gut, or to back down. He drifted back to were he belonged and I had a top 20 position when the start gun went off! Barry Wicks used the swerve all over the road tactic to scare the other riders so they wouldn’t pass him. It worked just as well. Once on the first climb it was chaos as euros sprinted everywhere, I dropped from top 20 to 50+ then back to 25′ish within a couple minutes as a lot of riders didn’t seem to understand the race was 50 km long, not 800 meters. More here.