live-cycle

It’s strange to think that Dennis and I have been connected by an ivisible string for the past few days. Our lives are linked to such a degree and our reliance on each is total, from the minute we wake to minute we close our eyes at night. Eating, washing, nutrition, drinking, riding and surviving, we do it together, pedal turn by pedal turn.
The 111km from Greyton to Oak valley today were no exception. We set off under cloudy skies, both feeling the strain of the last few days. We agreed to take it easy and warm our selves up gradually. The rolling gravel roads and tracks round Greyton certainly helped break us in gently.
We doudled wrapped today to save our backsides – that means Mr Pohle, using two pairs of shorts, I only have a few blisters, and I’ve not examined Dennis’s backside but he tells me it is bad. For 8 hours a day the sweat runs down your body filling the chamois inside your shorts, which mixes with the dust from the track and gradually and oh so painfully rubs away your skin on every contact point. Then the sweat dries and the salt crystals add their own delightful sting to the mix, eventually you can’t sit, then you can’t pedal because the rubbing and chaffing becomes intense. It’s like a form of torture, self inflicted of course but now you know how bad our backsides are lets get back to the day.
The first climb was big and long, 13km of constant climbing over gravel and rocks, at least it was dual track but the amount of people that kept blocking the way made life really difficult. I kept chugging away at the front of our team, as is usually the way on the early climbs, then Dennis takes over. Only this morning I looked for Dennis to come through and he wasn’t there, he was climbing slowly towards me, already looking weary and drawn.
I waited for him and checked he was ok, reassured by his response we carried on, 21km inside the first hour then the next hour things started to get worse as our pace slowed to 7kph. Even on the down hills Dennis was struggling. At the first waterpoint I urged him to eat, sharing food and making sure he was ok. This was going to be tough as there was still nearly 1700m of climbing to go and 80km to do it in.
I sat in front of Dennis, turning my pedals at a steady 90rpm, watching my heart rate and the clock tick away as the kilometres added up.
Some stats for you, I turned the cranks a staggering 45252 times today, my heart beat recorded 69889 beats over the course of the day’s stage.
We ate every 40 minutes, I kept making sure Dennis was eating, he had a thousand yard stare and body language that said “let me sleep here forever”
The climbs became agony, riders passed us by as we battled against everything to get the team home. My rear brake started squeaking after I hit a rock and bent the rotor blade, it is the little thing that you obsess about. Squeaking brakes, clicking from the pedals. To numb the pain in my backside I started looking at the tyre tracks ahead of me, I can now recognise the makes of tyre and the specific tread pattern of most of the brands, so sad is my existance. I ran over a dead butterfly on the third climb of the day, it stayed wedged between the tread on my front wheel for 23 minutes until gradually bit by bit if fell to pieces and then was gone.
After the third water point we climbed from sea level to 600 meters over 10km, it doesn’t sound like much, but the sun beat down on our backs, blistering our lips and drying our mouths. WE pushed on upwards, the road was our enemy, never or friend it gave no quarter but caused so much pain. Dennis, head down, grinding away, me head down trying to spin the dead feeling from my legs. As we neared the top of the climb I looked at the profile map of the route, four more clibs in last 25km all over rocky sandy ground that saps and sucks the strength from your legs and arms. Somehow delirous with pain we both made the top of the last climb, yes we had pushed a bit here and there but mostly we had ridden our way through a long day for me and rough day for Dennis. We were rewarded with a beautiful rolling singletrack section through some woods, lovely and cool, we rolled along weaving through the trees and out into the blaze of noise that greeted us as we enetered the finishing straight.
I took Dennis’s bike off him and sent him to find our tents, while washed them and got them serviced. Dennis must have been tired because he fell asleep within half an hour of our arrival.
He’s perked up now though – he is a true fighter, not one ounce of give in him.

My legs after today's stage, and yes they are shaved beneath the mud and dust!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Dennis. 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.