Stage 3 brought with it a classic Austrian hill climb stage – the rigid lightweights were out in force for this one. Hill climbing is not just another tool in the box for Austrians – they take it seriously to the point that it requires an entirely different bike. Some of the riders were sporting sub 7kg rigids at the start today – which answers the question of “where are all those Tune and TA Specialites bits on weight weenies actually used”. Here.
Warm up was always going to be critical for this race. At least it would be if you were a contender. Mike and I clearly were not, so we opted for the usual roll down to the start on singletrack. We figured it would be best to ‘ride into it’ as a means to improve net energy efficiency.
With the race run as a reverse order time trial, it was always going to be mentally a case of either cementing positions or not conceding them. It was difficult to be optimistic. No matter, I decided it would be best just to roll at my own pace and not overfeed on caffeine gels.
Anticipating a 1:20 race time the last 6 km came up as planned, however the last 6 flattened and things started to look a little more promising with 3 minute kilometres. The hurt was growing, but the top of the hill was also coming up pretty quick. It was rather sneaky of them, but the race organisers decided that it would be best to give us a dummy pass, send us down a short descent, then up a massively steep final 500m. This was not without a short boggy section just to make it that little more challenging. At least there was a dude with a start list who was keen to cheer us riders on by name.