Pre-race:
It's a day for the roadies again, lots of fast dirt or paved road. No climbs to speak of.
And later start so it will get hot quick.
Gave my other gps to Erik so hopefully he won't get lost once again, and possible come ride with me :) If another headwind both Erik and Peter in a little group today would be super. Goal today will be to save a little bit in the legs for tomorrow's big stage.
Had a nice little stay at this Eco friendly hotel - fully solar powered, everything around is natural growth, weeds and all stay, the breakfast was the best so far I'd say, maybe driven by no need to rush.
Post race update:
So my verdict on a short easy stage; not in Trans Portugal. No easy day here. This new stage of just over 100km on the profile looks like a walk in the park to some, but with some good winds and tired legs it is hard as any other stage, adding Erik's motivation and drive to get a stage win, made it very difficult to stick to the plan of not killing the legs for tomorrow.
I rode fairly moderate for the first little bit and Erik and Raphael cought me pretty quick. From then on it was race pace to the end. There was a better variety of trail and road today and quiet enjoyable. Some dude joined our ride in one of the early towns and it wasn't great. I don't think he clued understood when I asked him to either go back or go way ahead. He open a couple a gates for us and wanted to pull on sections which was no ok. So I told Erik to stay off it and him and I do the work only (off course not a great substitute for Erik but at least we can feel good after). I told the guy to stay off the front, so he decided to then ride next to me. And for those who know these double tracks, sometimes you have to swap line very quick to avoid obstacles like big sharp rocks (and with Burt's it's key to pick safe lines), well I didn't have this option anymore, he was always right there. On the road he would stay on our wheels, and when it was my turn to sit in I had to push him off Erik's wheel so I could get my spot and not be on his wheel, which wouldn't feel right. Weird deal, but after an hour or so, he smiled and said he had to go home and thanked us for the ride, had been fun he said and back he went. He probably never meant to be a annoyance but unfortunately it was a bit of that.
Finally could relax a bit and ride normal.
Erik rode like a mad man again, on the last CP we got the splits from the last cp, 16 to Jose and 9 or 6 to Peter. That was a few kilometres ago so they could be close. I told him to just ride and not look back, about 10 km to go. For the next 7 he rode as strong as I've seen him ride, I could barley hang on to the slight up wich is usually were he slows down. I gave him a couple breaks here and there but he did most of the hard work. In the end, we made it to the finish with no others passing after almost a wipe out in a massive puddle. Jose and Peter came a few minutes later together. And the pack not far after.
As for my goal for today; a total fail :) the legs left it all out there. I really wanted to maintain a nice pace for legs to recover, but when you ride with someone so driven and so committed to leaving it all out there for this one chance it's hard to not wanna join. And in the end just another day of great riding, and so is tomorrow.
The other half of team Aardal made all CPs and the finish, I believe this might also be a record. Note that last CP was only 10 k from the finish so nice work!
Happy Riding!
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