A short 85k dash to the next stopover is the plan. I get signed in and get my GPS tracker and get ready for the green light. We say goodbye to the Ski station and head downhill for about 20 kilometres. Is is fast and furious and not a little dusty. My descending is improving as I seem to be doing a crash course (no pun intended) over the past 3 days. My confidence is coming back after an enforced layoff since the accident in February.
I am seeing quite a few more people today, probably because it is such a short fast stage and the starting intervals for the different waves are relatively small. It is great to have company on a beautiful day like this, There are South Africans all over the place and I hear many enquiries about how Ireland will fare in this years' world cup.
We have a nice little distracting yak to avoid talking about upcoming hill and roman cobble descent and just then the race leaders yellow jersey blasts by jumping all over the bike and tearing up the hill. He is going 50% faster than us. Some people make this look too easy.
Then my troubles (or excuses if I'm being truthful) start. My GPS goes on the blink at a junction and says I am about 100M off the track to the right and stops updating. This is a problem as this a GPS guided race. There are no track markers and you need to have a complete GPS track for your day. I consider restarting the device but then I might not have the track to prove I did the first half. Bugger. I decide to carry on following some guys and hope it sorts itself out which it does in about 5 minutes.
Then my gear shifting starts to play up and I stop to adjust.....and suddenly Al is there. He has caught and now passed me! I think he must be giving it some gas today because I know I am riding at the pace I set last year, 'Maith an Fear!'....as the say in Gaelic. I tell him to keep going and I will handle my gear problem and I do, but it keeps on happening and I keep on stopping to free it up. I lose contact with the group I was riding in and am on my own again. The dust is buggering up my gears so I need to get the parts changed at the end of the stage.
I make a schoolboy error by not topping up my drink supply at the last water stop at 50k and it catches me out. I go dry at 75k and have to soften the pace a little for the last bit. By stage end, my mouth is like the Sahara.
All in all, a great day for Al and not actually too bad for me. I lose a couple of place in the GC and Al gains 4. Everyone is now focused on the 'Big One' tomorrow. 196k is apparently the longest single day in a multi-day stage mountain bike race.
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