Slept well last night - though still got up really early.Seems we could lie in bed longer but everyone seems to be up and about. We are supposed to wake to the radio/music from the trucks but as I say generally people are awake way before that! I seriously try to stay in bed a bit longer!! So this morning everyone was ready to go except for one so I decided to set off anyway - punched my button and left. Ended up riding the first 15 k on my own - it was quite nice though - just eased along - warming up slowly for a change - instead of going flat out straight away. It was really nice!
At about 15 km all the racers turned up and we gradually got faster and faster. Same sort of terrain as yesterday - slightly up and down and eventually really hot. Still fairly chilly in the mornings though - but there's no point putting bib shorts on before the bathroom trip! It's quite annoying - you can't afford to mess around in the morning - need to have a good order to your routine. Yesterday I managed to rip my tent bag a little in my rush to pack it away - today I was a lot better and packed it into the bag properly.
The group got faster and after about 40 km caught up with the second group - some people switched between the groups. I slowed down and ended up riding the last 20 km into lunch on my own. The flies there were terrible - I couldn't take it so I grabbed my sandwich and jumped back on my bike. Managed to chase down the racers and rode with them for about 10 km - but felt uncomfortable - didn't want to do it so dropped off again.
We hit a headwind section so I just rode it really slowly for about 20 km - enjoyed the views. For about 50 m by the side of the Nile there is an oasis of greenery and trees - then there is desert with the mountains in the background.off to the side are lots of dirt tracks - you can see 4 wheeled drive tracks all over the place. There were some guys with metal detectors following some diggers which appeared to be smoothing their way! Not quite sure what was going on there!
I rode 20 km pretty slowly expecting the group behind to catch me up. But they didn't appear and with 10 km to go I cycled into camp at about 35 km/h. Towards the end we turned off the road onto the sand and followed a 4 wheeled drive truck for a while - it was very bumpy and I bounced around for a while - a good indication of things to come! Bike was fine except it is still making a lot of noises. Yesterday I took it all apart and gave it a good clean - the sand gets everywhere! Added to that the seat decided to squeak today - you notice the noises a lot more when you are riding alone! But anyway it was all OK.
In the end I came in 6th and was happy with that. I felt a lot more comfortable going at today's speed - perhaps some of the others are comfortable going that little bit faster? We will see what the mountains and off road bring!
We camped by the side of the Nile again - lots of flies here. There was a big tree providing shade so quite a few people had chosen to put their tents there - but there seemed to be so many flies and so we pitched our tents nearer the trucks - fly situation seemed a lot better there! We did go for a swim in the Nile - a proper swim as it was deeper and we could jump in. Pretty cool! Have spent the rest of the time sorting out my tent and stuff - was going to switch my two bags around but it was too windy in the end to do that!
No comments:
Post a Comment