I have been very lucky with my mountain bike racing this year - other than both the Irish cross country and marathon Championships I have barely raced in the rain or even in wet conditions. Seven day stages all over the world and barely a drop. Coming to Australia I thought that this trend would continue but I really should have payed closer attention to us racing in the Rainforest.
Today started out like yesterday, overcast with passing showers but the temperature was nice - kinda in the Goldilocks zone - not too warm, not too cold. The race today looked to be a good one for me, lots of climbing and a large section of double track racing through the aforementioned rainforest. We started off fast not nothing too crazy and as we started the major climbs I tried to settle into a good rhythm rather than following many of the attacks. Last years GC winner Greg Saw seemed to be taking the same approach so I was happy enough with that. In the end, I think that was a mistake as a group of five just hovered a couple of minutes in front of me all day but I never got over. The legs were okay but not great and I just could never make the bridge. I seemed to be stuck on one speed all day riding all the climbs at the same pace whether at the start of the stage or end.
I finished 9th on the stage with Urs claiming his third stage win closely followed by Nicolas. Urs now has a commanding lead but with five more stages to come, anything can happen (everyone keeps telling me this).
Having looked at my uploads as I put them onto strava I can see some of the rides from other riders (the leading few) from previous years, this year the pace is way up despite the wet conditions - I was faster up climbs than podium guys last year but still well off (at the moment - my day will come!) the front runners this year - four days in and there hasn’t been any easy riding along!
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