Girona is my home town so I felt like I had to do something. I hadn't expected to go well in this stage but I'm pleased with how it went. It is slightly disappointing though to come so close yet miss out. It was an attack prompted more out of emotions really. I know the roads so well and I just got carried away really. The race was getting a bit funny and it was a bit of a cat and mouse game between the escape group and the peloton. And I knew if I could get rid of them others in the escape then I could go faster. I hit out on the descent and then thought it would be a bit of mano-a-mano well, me against 150 or so others at least and it was fun. It was amazing coming through Barcelona. The amount of people on the side of the road was incredible. With about 10km to go I thought I might have been able to win it but when I started seeing the huge boulevards in Barcelona they were dead straight for around four kilometers that was when I knew it was going to be an advantage for the peloton. When the roads are that long and straight, they have time to reorganize and get the chase going really well. Any advantage that I had gained early was going to be lost; but I kept trying. I just started to die in the last couple of kilometers but that's normal. I tried to avoid look around on the final climb. I just thought, I'll get there and then deal with it.' But when I did see them I knew there was no hope. It's amazing, you can look around and psychologically it saps you: if you see them your batteries just go flat.