Happy Birthday Matthew
Didn't sleep so well last night - there was a super loud animal of some sort making all sorts of weird noises nearby, not to mention the very early morning prayer call. Drives me nuts! Can you imagine a loudspeaker blaring out forcing the whole village to listen? I was slow as usual, when I suddenly realized Paul is leaving with Scott and Adam. I knew they wouldn't ride fast for him though. So I waited for Dennis. In fact I actually left a few minutes earlier to warm up as I know he likes to set off fast immediately. I rode about 7 1/2 km alone and then caught up with Bastiaan so we chatted for a while. Then Dennis arrived and we sped up together - he wanted to help me along. Although I think he would have been happy for me to just sit on his wheel I couldn't do that so we took turns at the front. In the end I pulled on the ups and he did the downs. It worked well. It was a good road, nice and dry, rolling hills - great scenery. After about 25 km there was a hill and the dirt started at about 30 km. Dennis said goodbye and wished me luck as I set off alone on the dirt to hunt down the boys. Just how I liked it. The dirt was actually quite smooth most of the time. I passed a few riders along the way. There were actually a couple of dirt roads and a walking track to choose from - the option to pick your route. I rode quite a lot on the walking track which the locals seemed to use - seemed a smoother surface but zig zagged quite a bit - had to try to minimize some of the corners! I rode hard and my heart rate was quite high. There was a giant puddle just before lunch, which i ended up walking round rather than get soaked! On the downhill into lunch the grip tape on my lower drops worked lose - it suddenly started sliding around - was really quite scary as I was not able to grip my bar properly to brake. I had to hold on to the top bars which was less comfortable and I couldn't go so fast. Kendra was at lunch so it was nice to have someone to chat with. It was quite funny as she had exact stats for me - Jorg is out front 10 minutes ahead, Scott 8 minutes and Paul 6. None of them had stopped for lunch - just grabbed something in passing. Scott later told me it was his quickest lunch stop,yet! I had made up some time though so decided to hang out for a few minutes and not rush - I was able to enjoy some extra pineapple.
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