Breck Epic stage 5 (Wheeler Loop – 45km, 1,300m total ascent)
1,300m total ascent. I can hear people say that it doesn’t sound that hard – heck we do that in London’s Surrey Hills which is almost flat. Well the only small difference is that the Surrey Hills don’t take you up to 3,800m above sea level.
Stage 5 started quite close to the apartment we were renting which was a good thing as I had an issue with the ratchet on my cycling shoe. Luckily I had a spare pair and was able to switch ratchet – not really how you want to start your day. The start was quite fast as people wanted to try and avoid the bottle necks once we hit the single track. About 20 minutes into the stage I could hear racers gaining on me. This made me wonder if I pushed too hard yesterday and whether I’m going backwards. Bit of a relief when Raminez Federixo in the solo open leader’s jersey passed me and I realised that some of the front guys must have taken a wrong turn. Turns out front 10 racers missed a turn and ended up close to the start again. Luckily they didn’t miss too much time but it did mean they had to fight through traffic to get back to the front.
A jeep track climb took us onto Wheeler trail and a really long hike-a-bike section. Most of the Wheeler trail that took us up to the top of Ten Mile Range was spent with my bike on my back. Towards the top the altitude was starting to get to me and I almost wanted to start laughing at the situation I was finding myself in. Once we crested we were at the top of Colorado state and the views really made the hiking effort worth it. Unfortunately I couldn’t admire the views for too long as the fun descent down Colorado trail awaited us. Seeing that I was in the leaders jersey in my category I decided to race smart and not to take too many chances on the decent. Jon Davis from stage 4 was one of the guys I let pass me and I wasn’t able to catch him again. I almost wished I wasn’t in the leader’s jersey so that I could blast down the trail as fast as possible.
Once we dropped out of the Colorado trail we were on a paved bike path for a fair few kilometres and going along at 40km/h helped to eat up the distance. At aid 3 we jumped on the Peaks Trail that took us all the way to the finish. The Peaks Trail is a fun singletrack trail but unfortunately it felt like we were going up all the time. The grade wasn’t steep at all but after 5 days of racing the legs start complaining at any gradient. Towards the end I was starting to count the kilometres off and when I heard loud cheering ahead I thought great I must be close to the finish. Turned out it was Amy Thomas and the Yeti Betis cheering the racers on. They all finished the 3 day race the previous day (with Amy ending 3rd overall) so they were quite happy not to be on their bikes. Would perhaps have been better if they were closer to the finish line as it turned out I still had a couple of kilometres to go (or so it felt). Most of the guys at the finish looked a bit tired as they must have been pushing it quite hard. Stage 5 in the bag – one left to go.