Today we had a circuit race to start the Vuelta [Al Tachira, editor] with. It was a 5,5k lap through Guasdualito, for a total of 20 laps or 110k. There were a lot of spectators and everybody in our team was excited to finally start the competition. It's nice to travel to an unknown country and to get a feel of everyday life, but in the end we're here to race of course. It was a very fast race, with important intermediate sprints and no real breakaways. Too many teams were aiming on a bunch sprint and it was a controlled race from the start on. Still, Rijntjes managed to get some seconds in a intermediate sprint which places him 7th place now in the general classification. During the race we all were very surprised by the times the riders changed bikes. It seems that, in case of a puncture, they rather change bike than wheels. Every lap a couple of big bangs occured, but these were caused by the enhousiastic audience and not blowing tires. Other than that it was business as usual in the peloton. Three of us are decent sprinters, so we had to come up with good race plan to get our best man in the best possible place. It all worked out pretty well, with Kos finishing 4th in the stage. Everybody had a good day (although we all suffered a bit) and the team is willing to work together and we're looking forward to what the next stages will be like.