Stage 8. Laura to Hope Vale
109km - 1,250m climbing
Crocodile trophy stage 8 update, one stage to go and it is all over.
Today was a good day on the bike. After yesterdays soft pedal time trial, my legs felt good, and I got a good result. More to come at the end.
Todays stage of 118km went from Laura to Hope Vale. One small town to another you could say. Todays stage looked more like a road race than a mountain bike race, with the first 65km on a hard dirt road that is usually corrugated as hell, but today was smooth, thank goodness. Then we had 50km of asphalt and that had 1000m climbing in it and the end.
For me, it was fun. My kind of stage you could say. The group stuck together for the first 50km, so a big pelaton. My drama happened at the first drinks station where I stopped to pee, and when i got back on I heard the ping-ping-ping sound that is all to familiar of a broken spoke. Stop, wrap the spoke around another spoke, and look up and the pelation has gone. I look back and see Cory Wallace, the second place on the GC back as well, and think this is going to hurt to chase back on. Off I set, and Cory quickly caught me, and Mark, the leader in GC is also waiting, and we chase on. Taking turns it took us a good 15-20 mins to catch back onto the pelaton, and it was a hard effort. A few words were exchanged once the boys made it back on. Then the buggers in the general pelaton sat up, and soft pedaled at about 15-20km/hr. Maybe the head wind got to them, and I was not going to find out if there was wind or not out front.
On the first kicker hill, I managed to stay with the lead group, as the group got smaller and smaller. More hills, and suddenly it was just 6 of us. The two leaders were off the front chasing someone who had got away. We chased on and caught Cory and Mark, and then the group was again 7, as we spat out another on the chase. Looking around it was a select group. Places 1-4 and 7 in the GC, Hans (the guy I have been racing), and me.
I managed to hang on until the end over more rollers that hurt a lot of hang on, it was a sprint finish.
I managed to get third overall on the day. The sprint had an added bonus of a small dip that ended up been a jump 200m before the finish, which definitely added a small bit of excitement at 50-60km/hr. Happy with that. The guy who got away, stayed away and won by 5 mins, one guy beat me in the sprint, and I managed to win the M2 category to get another boomerang.
A good day today, and one day to go. Tomorrow we have 50km from Hope Vale to Cooktown. It will be interesting to see what happens as I am semi expecting a soft pedal, then a race up the short hill to the finish line. The hill is 130m high, but has some 30% pitches in it, and a stair climb as well. I am sitting 12th overall on GC, and 2nd in M2, so it has been a very good race for me.
Until Cooktown.
Hamish