It’s a challenge to cover a bicycle race when you aren’t in control of your situation – only receiving bits and pieces of information when the wireless gods smile on you – which is never - or when you can decipher the race radio in your wind-blown, motion-sick state from the back seat of a media car. At the start of each day you have an important decision to make: take a ride in the caravan, or take to the course in a rental car alone and hope for the best. Choosing to ride in the caravan’s media car means you have zero control for the entire race, but if your team puts a man in the break it could be absolute gold. It also means you’re going to get sun/wind-burned while sitting in a cramped seat for 3-5 hours on twisty, bumpy roads. And you’re always going to need to pee.

Today we hedged our bets and took a ride in the media car. We had our reasons. Rally would be expected to ride at the front all day to keep the breakaway close, since Matteo Dal-Cin was in the leader’s jersey and the team’s sprinter, Eric Young, was a serious threat on the day, having won this exact race on two previous occasions. By simply putting a rider in the break, Rally could remove some of the burden of the chase, forcing unrepresented teams to do some work at the front. A successful stage race hinges on energy conservation, and with three tough stages remaining, every little bit saved would pay dividends in the end.

But, man, is the Inner Loop Byway beautiful. We got to see amazing rock formations, gurgling streams, dense forests of Ponderosa pine and cedar, and the giant copper mine that is still active east of Silver City. Though we didn’t get to see much Rally Cycling action out on the road course, we did arrive at the race finish minutes before the peloton stormed into Fort Bayard. We watched in the distance as the speeding group came over the rise onto the finishing straight. With 100 meters to go, it looked as though UHC’s Travis McCabe was going to take the win. Incredibly, Eric Young pulled even with him with about 40 meters to go and then lunged his bike forward with a picture-perfect throw, pipping McCabe at the line and sealing Rally’s second victory in as many days!

Despite the Rally team’s exciting victory today, an uneasiness has now settled over The Copper Manor as evening approaches. The riders know that tomorrow’s time trial will play a huge part in determining the overall, and having that stuck in the back of their minds evokes palpable tension. But that’s the sport of cycling in its simplest summation – as a pro you’re never allowed to relax too much for too long. The sport is too demanding, too cutthroat. There’s always something stressful around the next corner to stop short the celebration. It’s the nature of the beast - you must always look forward or risk getting left behind.

Maybe it’s not tension we’re sensing, but rather focus. When your job is to race a bike, you had better be focused before a big stage. This a team that enjoys each other’s company. Jokes in the morning, jokes after the stage, jokes on the massage table. Keep it light, but be ready to execute the task at hand. Tonight, however, there exists a seriousness that the guys haven’t revealed over our first few days in Silver City. As they huddle together on the motel’s second floor balcony, they look more like a platoon than they do a professional cycling team.

And with that, our Silver City top 7 for the day:

• Not barfing in the media car
• Eric Young
• Gurgling streams
• Fort Bayard
• Jalisco Café
• Discounted Easter candy at CVS
• Climbing Eighty Mountain to get our 10,000 daily steps