The longest I’ve ever spent on a bicycle. Today we finished our stage in 7:29 and were very pleased with our performance. Seven and a half hours! This race is not for sissies and to see the stragglers arriving for the 10:30 cut off time was emotional. A good friend of ours Vaughan managed to cross the line with a few minutes to spare but without a partner who had to be taken out the race at a water point for dehydration and low blood pressure.
It was a day with all the climbs taking place in the first half of the race. The beauty about the climbing today was that it was spread out enough to recover in-between each punishing mountain range. The long sweeping Arendskloof climb was a favourite of mine and we paced ourselves brilliantly to the summit. On the other side, we were served an extremely dangerous descent that required a rider’s full attention. It was a true test of bike skills and nerve. We were told by the announcer at the top of the mountain that we had district roads all the way home for the last 40km. Clearly he had no idea what was at the bottom of the mountain. I thought we had pedalled our way back to Camps Bay. For 4km, we were walking through thick sand and the sense of humour failure amongst my fellow competitors was noticeable.
After removing our cleats to empty all the sand out, we were back on track to fight our way home. Only 30km left in the famous Worcester wind. We rode along the beautiful Brandvlei dam and the water looked so inviting with its turquoise green water while we were fighting the sweltering heat. Then there was another curve ball thrown at us. We were sent on a crossing of the dam, but they didn’t bother to tar the bridge or even concrete it. We had to negotiate rocks and pebbles across the width of this massive mass of water. It was extremely tough with the wind cutting straight across our bikes. If this doesn’t toughen you up, then you are already Chuck Norris.
There were a number of long faces in the dining hall tonight and Dan Nichol’s voice is starting to work on our nerves a lot more than usual. I guess the short amount of time we have to ourselves off the bike is making everyone a bit edgy. Hey, this is the Epic isn’t it? The good news is we seem to have moved up another 23 spots on the GC.
Tomorrow we have a very challenging stage of 111km with 2000m of climbing. All we know is that in Worcester, it will be hot, windy with plenty of rocks and sand to negotiate. Let’s see if we can emulate today’s effort.
Good night
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