Oh my, today was HARD! Lots of climbing, lots of hike-a-bike and lots of somewhat technical descending. Today was the first day we actually saw the second place team out on the course. They rolled into the 25km aid station right as we were leaving. It had been mostly downhill up to that point, so everyone was still pretty tightly packed. Conveniently, there was a railroad crossing a couple km from the aid station and not more than a minute after we crossed the tracks, a train came by, splitting the pack and cutting off our chasers. Priceless!
Once we crossed the train tracks, we had a big climb where we got in a good rhythm and motored along at a good pace. A bit of hike a bike to get to the top, then a rocky, fun descent that we were riding really well. It eventually became strewn with freshly cut pine tree branches, which made it a mine field of derailleur ripping and spoke breaking sticks.
Then came two more brutal climbs that had several bike carries up boulders and rock slabs. My chainrings got tangled up in my pack on a couple of the carries, so I was stuck at the top kneeling with my bike hanging off of me in a precarious manner. Thankfully there were other racers to untangle me!
This section was pretty hard and the fireroad descent that finally came after was not showing me any love. Loose, deep gravel – pretty much my least favorite riding surface, so I tried to stay somewhat close to Carey and not get swallowed up by any of the deep ruts that popped up here and there. We are so close to the end that I'm starting to get really paranoid about crashing!
The final 20 km of the course was just BRUTAL. Three 200 m climbs and descents all in a row. It doesn't sound like much, but that is like 3x up Kennesaw Mtn – and not on the nice paved road...think climbing up boulders, straight up, and in the sun. Our granny gears certainly got a good workout today, as did our upper bodies from pushing and carrying so much! The descents weren't all that fun either as there were some big, stinky manure mud bogs that we had to make our way through. Yes, now our bikes and shoes smell like cow poop!
Needless to say, we were REALLY glad to be done with today's stage. Not sure how much time we put on second place, but judging by how hard WE were hurting, I could only imagine that they were suffering like dogs. Only 50 more miles and we're done!
There is a neat photo from stage 5 here Just look for the rider wearing the magenta jersey.
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