9th Telekom Malaysia Le Tour de Langkawi - 2.2

Malaysia, February 6-15, 2004

Rider Diaries

Photo: © Mark Sharon

Mountain Man: The Roland Green diary

Nationality: Canadian
Team: Canada

Dual world MTB champion Roland Green proved his worth on the roads of Malaysia in 2003, winning the King of the Mountains prize and finishing fourth overall. This year, Roland wants to win. Stay tuned to see whether the mountain man can do it.

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All about the vigilance

Stage 4 start - February 9: Hulu Kelang

I'm hungry again - I ate at 6.30am this morning. I've surrendered to the fact that I'm going to bed at 9 and getting up at 6. But that's fine by me.

I was a little disappointed yesterday there weren't more attacks before the climb when it was slow tempo. I think a lot of it was the heat; people were content to just sit in - no-one wants to be the first arsehole to attack :)

I was feeling really good on the climb. On the descent, I was a little freaked out because I had those carbon rims and it's the first time I've ever descended or ridden them in the rain. You have to keep the heat on them, and then they can grab, but if you're going on a long descent and you want them, they don't kick in for four or five seconds... That was a pretty interesting descent, especially with some of those wet leaves around.

But I was cautious. I didn't really have any reason to push it. I was 1'28 down at the end. It was the main group: there was Lancaster, then Gord [Fraser], then a few small groups of two or three guys, then there was a big group of like 25-30 guys - that was my group. We just sort of collected ourselves on the descent, and then we motored. That last 10k, we were flying with those Chocolade [Jacques-Wincor] guys in front. We were caning it. It was like, wow... OK, cool!

The yellow jersey wasn't there. I lost some time; I kept looking back on the straightaways at the end, and I couldn't see anybody. But then at the finish line, he [Marlon Perez] wasn't that far back.

I haven't really seen the South African teams collect themselves yet in this race. I think it's stages like today and Stage 6 where we've really got to attack them. And we've yet to see what sort of alliances form. My guess is that Panaria is going to team up with them [Colombia Selle-Italia]; yesterday, they [Colombia Selle-Italia] just let Lancaster go. So maybe they traded it off for later in the race, and they'll [Panaria] will give them help along the flats; they've got some good tempo power in their team, which they are going to need.

It'll be really interesting to see what kind of tempo will be ridden when they're [Colombia Selle-Italia] are really forced to ride tempo on the flats. I think the biggest force here that people are underestimating are the South Africans; together [Barloworld and South Africa], I think they'd be really looking to start attacking.

Today, the team strategy is vigilance - it's all about the vigilance. We gotta get in a move. We got to get racing here. We have a couple of guys who are definitely fit enough to get in the early break and last the stage, and from there, it's a matter of whether it's allowed to stay away.

Climbing-wise, I feel I'm getting fitter every day, so I'm happy with that. As far as the time gaps go right now, it really all comes down to Genting [Stage 9]. I don't see winning the race overall as a reality anymore, so with a good ride, I'm looking to move up overall into the top 10. I would be really happy with a top five.

But you just have to wait and see who cracks [up Genting]. I could be one of those crackers!

See you guys,
rg

Editor's note: Roland finished in 120th place, 1'29 behind stage winner Sean Sullivan; he now lies 19th overall, 2'28 behind overall leader Freddy Gonzalez.

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