Yesterday I suffered like a dog on the first monster climb before I pulled it together for the second part. Today's stage had a similar monster to start, followed by a mainly fire road descent and then another climb which out did the first! To make matters worse the top of the second climb reached gradients of 30% and had a cheeky false summit.
All in all today was a shocker. I was nicely settled into my back of the pack position on the first climb and once again passed the time comparing pain notes with Mike Blewitt. Towards the top I was gapped and spend the descent valley before the second climb chasing.
The second climb was a monster, super steep and very long complete with a hike a bike section through snow drifts at the top. It appears that my legs don't agree with super steep gradients so I was reduced to a slow plod. I could see Mike ahead and aimed to catch him by the top. I finally caught him as we crested the climb.
The rest of the stage was pretty awesome though. A long boulder strewn descent through the alpine scenery was great fun, although some sections were unridable and involved a bit of scrambling to get down. As soon as we hit the descent I once again began to bring back riders ahead. Entering the last 10km I pushed on as hard as I could. No one overtook me and I continually overtook riders.
Unfortunately I lost so much time on the major climbs of the day that my final efforts were in vain. I haven't seen the results yet and to be honest I don't think I really want to. I know there were at least 3 elite riders behind me so fingers crossed there were a few more behind them but I'm not too hopeful!
Tomorrow brings the mountain time trial and I have a feeling that I'm going to get smashed again.
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