For Subaru-MarathonMTB.com’s team at the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge, of Jeff Bossler and Will Hayter, today was a reminder of how much challenge is added to a race by running it as a two-man team event.
I had one of those rare, 1 in 100, days where really good legs arrive on race day. Every cyclist knows that feeling of nothing hurting the legs, and feeling as if you can just go and go again. When you feel loose and supple, when those little niggles and sorenesses that we all have don’t rear their ugly heads. When the heart rate surges easily, but it feels like you’re ticking over even when you’re up at 170bpm. Generally when it feels as if you were simply meant to be pedalling a bicycle, and all is right with the world. I’ve heard it called a ‘no chain’ day, and that’s quite apt. It’s something to be treasured, because it doesn’t come around often; at least not for me. And when it does come around, it can often be on a random Tuesday evening while spinning home from work – i.e. when it’s absolutely no use at all.
Will in yesterday’s prologue; photo Pascal Mamet
It’s a two-man event, though, and unfortunately Jeff didn’t quite have the same feeling. Temperatures approaching 40 degrees were hurting him badly, and after the steady first half of the stage, a brutally steep concrete climb pushed the body’s thermostat up through the roof. After that, I could see that Jeff was suffering hard; I know exactly how he was feeling, because that was how I felt on day one of this year’s ABSA Cape Epic – feeling as if my whole body was in an oven, robbing the legs of any power.
Andreas Freiter from the German Dodos, showing the effort from today’s stage
So we had to settle in and manage the situation. On each climb, the strong Kenyan team behind would reel us back in; we’d put time into them again on the downhills as Jeff led the charge, and on the flats where I was putting those good legs to enjoyably useful effect. Happily, towards the end of the last climb before the finish kicker, we caught up to the second-placed team from La Reunion, accompanied by unintentionally solo rider Kallen Williams, the strong Saffa from the Toyota CSA espoir development road team. We couldn’t quite hold them coming into the finish, but finished up third again, not far from second place but now quite a long way back from Lincoln and Swanepoel in first.
I’m sure this is what the bus was designed for
There are two more stages; I’ve no doubt that Jeff, being the experienced stage racer he is, will only get stronger with recovery and acclimatisation; I can only hope I can hold on to something like today’s feeling, and we should then have a good couple of days, with a good shot at pulling back second at least, and being in the mix if the leaders falter.
National pride, physio-style; dust, Mauritius-style
Good legs or no, though, today was a superb day to be on a bike. If the race has set out to show off how stunning the interior of the island of Mauritius is, it did a pretty good job of that today. There were plenty of highlights, not least of which was a 2km ribbon of singletrack near the end of the stage, by the side of a lake, with the trail demarcated by densely-growing wild yellow flowers growing to knee height. Unfortunately my botanical knowledge doesn’t stretch to identifying them while barrelling along in singletrack tunnel-vision mode, but suffice to say that it was a happy moment.