Pioneer Journey – Stage 3

DAY FOUR – Stage 3: 79km, 2203m climbing

I woke up, walked over to the bike yard where everyone’s bike is kept overnight to find my bike and see a note saying my back wheel had been replaced. I was not completely surprised about this as I knew my wheels were old and the hubs were in bad shape, but I was hoping to make it through on it. Oh well, they had transferred all the parts on my old wheel onto this new one. The new wheel made the bike feel as good as new so I was ready to get started with today’s stage.

Today’s stage was supposed to be an intermediate stage that could be taken easy(ish) to let the legs have a break. The profile looked like one solid climb then cruising trails to the finish so once at the top of the climb then you could recover to get ready for the last 2 days. Similar to other days, the day started with some fast trails where we could just sit in the bunch. This was probably the fastest section and it was early on so our entire bunch was still together and it was much easier to sit on than drop off and work in the wind. The road widened for a short section and I thought I would take this opportunity to move up to my partner who was 4 or 5 people ahead of me. So, I click up a few gears into my biggest and wrenched on the pedals to overtake the riders. My bike just felt like it snapped instantly, and pedalling got me nowhere, so I assumed my chain had snapped. I look down and see my chain still fine, but my cassette lock ring had popped off letting my small cog spin freely meaning I now had no big gear. This was a problem as we were still on the fast section, so I was spinning like crazy trying to get back onto and then hold on to the bunch. I was frustrated, and Rohan asked if we needed to stop but I said there is nothing we can do as we needed a cassette tool, we needed to get to the first aid station where a mechanic would be there waiting to hopefully fix my bike. So, as we climb the main climb of the day, I go harder than I probably should have out of frustration and desperation to not lose much time. We make it and it takes longer than I had hoped to fix the bike, I stand there watching rival teams ride passed and out of sight only adding to my frustration. Finally, we get going again and slowly ease into a solid tempo trying to bring back some time. Not long after we begin a very rough descent, I hear my bike rattling again, but this time it was my chain guide that had come loose. Hoping I can roll down to the next aid station with it rattling there is moves back towards my rear wheel meaning I had to stop to take it off or it could’ve caused serious damage. More time lost. Not long after this while still descending a rocky trail my back tyre starts making the sound no one wants to hear, air leaving the tyre. I got a flat. We stopped to try plug the tyre which ultimately did not work so we were left with one choice, put a tube in the tyre and hope I don’t get a pinch flat for the rest of the day. Normally this would be easy enough, but these trails were rougher than anything I had ridden before. We finish the descent safely and ride to a solid pace moving through teams to finish to end what was the most frustrating day of the race for us. We rode in for 43^rd which bumped us down to 23^rd overall on GC. This wasn’t many places down on what we were previously, but the time gaps were quite large now. Before this stage we had looked and believed a top 20 on GC was possible but this brought that down to a slight possibility.

My face here pretty much sums up how I felt about today’s stage. It was a day to forget about and move on. The thing about stage races is that days like these happen to almost all times some time throughout the week so ours was over with and we just had to capitalise on others having a bad day as well.

Luckily, I had booked the mechanics package as it had proved its worth multiple times already this race. I handed them my bike to work on overnight to replace the rear tyre and make it tubeless and to also fix the chain guide back on. For anyone thinking of doing a race and whether to book the extra packages, do it. I didn’t have to clean my bike after each stage as they did it for us which meant I didn’t have to stand for 30 minutes waiting in line for the pressure washer. Instead I was able to relax in the social zone and recover as best as possible while telling stories of the day with other riders.