Morning Ride: didn’t sleep that well last night – don’t know why – just wasn’t tired. Woke up and as it wasn’t a race day I was in no hurry to actually get out of my bed – shocked that everyone else was! Anyway so I was really slow in getting myself ready – there were eggs for breakfast – which I didn’t realize at first and so made myself some weetabix – then suddenly I realized there were eggs on offer so I had an egg sandwich as well, which was really great! So a pretty decent breakfast for a change! After I finished packing away my tent Scott and I left on our own – it was off road for a little while – gravel – pretty awful – and then we got on to the road. The road was kind of smooth, but also very bumpy – as if the tar had melted and drifted – so a smooth road but bumpy!!! Just the two of us riding along quite slowly – we caught up with the odd rider now and then – people everywhere as usual. The scenery had really changed – more and more trees. The morning was was mainly rolling hills. After a while, maybe about 10 km, Meghan, who was in front of us, ran into a baby goat and fell on the road. We stopped to check she was OK – she hadn’t scraped herself at all but had banged her head. She seemed fine so we carried on leaving her to ride with Len. Later we discovered she had started vomiting and so Len had called for the truck as she had concussion. She was OK later. Scott and I continued, taking it fairly easy – we did go up one hill pretty fast as a warm up but then slowed down again at the top. We were trying to get all the kids to say “Hello, hello” instead of “You, you” – hopefully they will continue to say that instead! Met a few kids with more vocabulary than “Give me money” and chatted a little with them.
Came upon a town with a factory – the first we had seen - there were a lot of people out and about there! Then we heard shouts calling us over – it was Kendra and Steve having coffee – so we joined them for a macchiato – little shot of coffee with chocolate on top and milk – really good! After this it was only 1 more km into lunch. There were a lot of people at the lunch stop.
We then had a 20km downhill into the gorge. The gorge was amazing – reminded me of the Grand Canyon – seemed very similar except of course you cant ride down the Grand Canyon – and we were riding down this gorge. So – it looked like the Grand Canyon and we were riding down it on our bikes – just imagine!! There were lots of switchbacks and the road again was smooth but bumpy as if it had melted and moved. Very odd. Then there were large sinkholes where the road just seemed to have dropped or sunk a foot or so. Still it was tarmacced! It was great fun – fantastic views. There were lots of people walking up – they were unbelievable – no idea why they were walking, where they had come from or where they were going to. Always people everywhere walking. There were a lot of dirt tracks to the side of the main road, taking out the switchbacks and again people walking up the dirt carrying massive baskets on their heads – going to market maybe?
The downhill actually became quite painful. You had to keep slowing down and watching carefully where you were going. My hands were hurting – from the pressure – I kept trying to switch them around and move them backwards and forwards. My shoulders were also hurting – it wasn’t like a normal downhill where you let it roll and just brake at the corners. You had to constantly brake and watch where you were going – pick your line – avoiding people, bumps and holes in the road – and all the time half looking at the view as it was so amazing. After about 19km we stopped at a little waterfall – it had been talked up a lot – but we had a wander up to look at it – a little waterfall through the cliffs. We continued on our way across a brand new bridge at the bottom over the river where we stopped to get ready for the time trial.
We were taking it in turns for the time trial – it was supposed to be in reverse order from the standings but that plan had got messed up as we all arrived at lunch at different times. I arrived with Adam, Scott and Steve and really wanted to go last – so I guessed I messed around for a while taking my time with a bathroom break, taking photos and admiring the views across the river. Then we decided on our order – Steve, Scott , Adam and then me – good as I would have people to chase!
We set off one at a time and I was trying to take it easy – keeping my heart rate low and set up a good rhythm. I felt really good but I didn’t want to hurt my legs today so I had decided to slow down if my legs hurt or if my heart rate got too high. But I was able to stand up on my bike quite easily and started to catch a few people. After about 5km I caught Adam. We knew the record for the 20 km climb of 1350m was 1 hour 15 minutes (actually I hour 19 mins set in 2009) so we figured 1hr 45 minutes would be a good time. This meant a speed of about 12/13 kmph – something like that. Anyway so I was watching my speedo – it was about 13kmph so as long as I kept it thereabouts I was quite happy. There was a lot of changing gears, standing for a bit, sitting for a bit – really having to push through. Would be really nice if I had a few more gears – Scott has mountain bike gearing and a couple of other people have mountain bike rear cassettes – I have completely road gears – so it was challenging. Just would have been nice to have a few more gears to spin out. But I felt strong and I felt I was riding well. About half way up the climb it flattened out a bit for a while which was really nice! I got in my lower bars, in my drops and got my speed up to 25kmph – it was a little flat section with a bit of a tailwind so I whipped through there quickly! The views were unbelievable. Overtaking trucks which were moving so slowly, still being very careful avoiding people and donkeys. I had my music on which was quite nice – blocked out the “You, you , you ..” for a while. I realized I don’t pay much attention to the actual songs – its just nice to have some music going!
I caught up with Scott. I thought Lincoln had said something about a separate climb 2 km from the top – but there wasn’t one – I shouldn’t have tried to listen to that advice and just ridden as it was a bit confusing! It was definitely harder towards the end – unpaved gravel – very hard to get any traction – and that sucked the energy out of you. I had wanted to sprint for the finish but I was trying to ride smart so I just rolled in – and ended up finishing in third place in 1 hour and 30 minutes. A great result for me!!
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