The Tour de Picardie began yesterday. The first stage went to Egidijus Juodvalkis, who is also the race's first overall leader. Styby didn't have great legs and finished in the second group, 12 seconds back.
The day started with a moment of silence in memory of deceased rider Wouter Weylandt. “It was really sad. I thought about it a lot the last few days. It's hard to get the articles and pictures from the papers out of my head. But to be honest, I didn't know Wouter well.”
Following the moment of silence the peloton headed off on the 162km stage. “The start went quite smoothly. The speed was there, but the nervousness wasn't. There was a break with two riders and the peloton wasn't in too much of a hurry to catch them.”
The pace picked up in the last 20km. “And it kept getting faster. With 2.5km to go it was too fast for me. The finish was at the top of a small hill and I didn't have the legs to stay with the peloton. I hope the coming days will go better.”