It snowed in Spain. In some places it was the first time in 25 years they’d seen snow. The result: national chaos and cancellation of stage 5 of Andalucia Bike Race. With a severe weather warning in place the organisers made the sensible choice not to send 650 cyclists into the mountains. Stage 6 was then modified from a team time trial to a mass start 52km stage with 1,300 metres of climbing.
Unlike previous stages which had featured a “neutralised” start, today was flat out from the gun as we raced along the initial tarmac stretch towards the olive farms, here all hell broke loose as the riders all tried to filter into a very muddy, slippery farm track, a crash resulted in one rider bending his front wheel in half, oops!
The fast opening section continued on gently climbing double track, with small packs of riders desperately clinging on to the wheel in front. Shortly after the first feed at 16km the climbing started properly which at least meant the pace settled down a bit. We were making good progress on the full suspension 29ers on the loose climbs and began to pick off riders. At first the climb was on open hillside but then continued through the pine forest around the castle which sits high above Jaen. Eventually we reached the snow line and the steep, muddy single track became unrideable in places resulting in a quick hike a bike to the top – well no euro marathon would be complete without it!
Riders swapped snow for sun on the final stage of the 2013 Andalucia Bike Race. Photo: Vermont Images
From the top we descended on an awesome section of singletrack. At first through the snow, then some steep, slippy sections before leading to an amazing bottom section which was fairly flat but very twisty. We flew through this section hot on the heels of two Scott riders, hammering round blind bends using the Force to guide us – speeder bike style!
The route brought us back on the double track we’d used on the outward leg, only this time it was downhill! Small groups got together and worked through and off roadie style to try and catch the group in front. The run in was great fun, really fast, hammering up small rises and roundabouts before finishing with for us a small bunch sprint!
The 2013 race has been amazing. Results wise we’ve certainly not achieved what we hoped but we have had more than our fair share of bad luck with both of us suffering broken gear shifters on the first two days and Tim being ill, which certainly slowed him down! However, we’ve ridden well as a team which will serve us well in the future.
Ben Thomas and Tim Dunford celebrate the finish of the 2013 Andalucia Bike Race. Photo: Vermont Images
We’re hugely grateful for the support from all our sponsors without whom none of this would be possible. A big thank you to everyone at Mountain Trax for getting our great race bikes tuned and ready to rock, to the Andalucia bike race team for inviting us to their amazing event and an extra big thanks to John from Vermont Images for coming out to support us, not sure he was expecting the feedzones to be covered in snow! Hopefully we’ll be back next year to have another bash!