After Sunday’s short sharp prologue, on Monday we took on the first full length stage of the race.
The start was much less chaotic than the prologue and I felt fairly comfortable up the first climb. Over the top myself and Ben rode well together as a team and managed to drop the large group we were riding with in the singletrack sections.
Eventually we were joined by Matt Page and his team-mate Milton Ramos. We worked fairly well together until the half way point in the stage. The was a steep rocky singletrack which forced us off our bikes and pushing. After about five minutes of pushing we reached the top and a short sharp descent followed by another short but steep climb.
At this point my legs decided that they didn’t like bike riding any more and promptly stopped working. The rest of the stage was a bit grim! We lost a lot of time to Matt and Milton and I suffered on any steep gradient (whiet Ben rode along like it was a recovery ride!). We finished 32nd on the stage which I’m pretty disappointed with. Hopefully we can rectify the situation on stage two.
Share