Breck Epic stage 4 (Aqueduct Loop – 71km, 1,800 total ascent)
“Punishment. Reward. Punishment. Reward. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.” is how the introduction to stage 4 read in the course description. The punishment bit stood out for me. A real racing stage where a strong climber could make up some time
As for the previous 2 stages, stage 4 saw us leave from downtown Breckenridge under police escort. Being from London the police officer in his big SUV with lights flashing made me think of a TV clip in ‘Wildest police chases’ set somewhere in the USA. Stage 4 was a bit different from the previous stages as I had the leaders jersey in the male solo 30-40 category and now I had to try and defend it. Early on in the stage Mike said we could take it easy today as the two of us had over an hour on the 3rd spot in our category. I sort of agreed with him and decided to take the stage at my own pace. Or that was the idea. Seems you always find somebody to race. This somebody went by the name of Jon Davis from Boulder, Colorado riding for Trek Bike Store Colorado. Jon could have raced in our category but having a pro licence decided to race in the Open Solo category with all the young fast guys. I was very thankful for this as he would have been the leader in our category forcing me to wash a jersey instead of getting a clean one from the race organisers.
Jon and I had our own little battle for the first 30km where I would catch and pass him on the climbs and he would then drop me on the descents. It was actually good ‘fun’ and helped to keep a good steady pace. The 3rd climb of the day was called Vomit Hill and that was a very apt description of the climb as it just got steeper and steeper towards the top. Luckily I could hold on and pass Jon but as usual he dropped me on the descent. After aid 2 the main climb of the day started – a 15km climb. The gradient wasn’t that steep at an average of 2.9% but altitude did start to take its toll toward the top and 3,400m above sea level. I managed to open a small gap on Jon on this long climb and managed to stay away on the fun descent on the other side. By the time I hit the last climb of the day I was starting to feel the effect from all the climbing in my legs. I decided to back off a bit as I thought I still had the same 4km single track end loop from stage 3. I was preparing myself mentally for this bit because as on stage 3 you get close to the finish and they then send you on this big loop before finishing. Just as I was ready to turn to start the loop I saw the arrow point in the opposite directly. Brilliant! Short 1.5km section straight to the finish. On top of this I managed to win the stage in my category and get another clean jersey.