live-cycle

The alarm went of at 5am, shortly after a chorus of alarms from the tents around. Awake and not really ready for another day in the saddle we headed for breakfast. Normally a leisurely affair for me, I was somewhat surprised by the bun fight that appeared to be going on, everyone after bananas or bread, making sandwiches and downing as much screambled egg as they could. A quick sprint to the loo, bum cream on, shoes on, and we were at the start.
A fast road start, the peloton of 1200 riders stretching out in front and behind us as we cruised along at 35kph – the leaders were doing 50kph!
We had made a plan today and that was to take it easy, and we did, the view from the back of the peloton was quite lovely. Turning off road eventually we wound along the valley floor through fruit orchards over some thrilling singletrack. There were plenty of spills as many riders came to grief early as we battled through roots and rocks and sand. Over the first two climbs and Dennis is feeling sick, probably all of the carbohydrate we are eating, I stick with him, as he did me yesterday and see him over the top and on to the flat section.
We eat and drink at the water point and then head off through more sand, so deep you can’t ride in it. Everyone around us was cursing the sand. Sand comes in any colours – red, silver, white and gold all of it is a nightmare to ride or stagger through. My shoes filled with the stuff, my face was coated with it and my gears were full of it and the crunching sound they made wasn’t healthy.
Pushing on we passed some ostriches.
Apparently 80% of this race is in the head, as we hit the the slopes of the next big climb that’s where I retreated, i felt nauseous and tired. My whole body screamed at me to stop, even the descents were hard work. The hardtail bikes we are using are really good but boy when that tail bounces up and smacks your backside you really know about it. I appeared to have lost the feeling in my little finger and all the strength in my thumbs went too meaning I didn’t have the physical strength to change gear.
Over the top of this 500m climb and some debate was being had about where the easy bit was and which bit had they cut out of the stage to bring it down to 100k rather than 114km it was supposed to be.
Winding back down to the valley my nausea returned with a vengence, struggling to turn the pedals through yet more sand I forced my self on, Dennis riding patiently beside me. The last climb was one of thos ethat teases you, makes you believe you are at the top and the says “haha fooled you,” just round the next corner lay another false crest, this went on for nearly 3km as we hauled oiurselves over the 500m climb and on to the downhill.
Normally I’m a chicken on the downhill, but today I was so tired I just hung on and went for it, careering down slopes so steep that I could scarcly believe. Both Dennis and I admited we would never have attempted those steep descents at home, but here, well anything goes.
We arrived in a little over 8 hours meaning we had time to get the bikes serviced, have a massage under a tree and take our time about getting ready for tomorrow. Also having dropped into 501st place yesterday we managed to get back inside the top 500 finishing 494th.
We are trying to put some pictures up for you to see what we are up to but we’re not having much luck. We will try again tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.