Port to Port Stage 2 – Ward and Sheppard extend their leads

This morning Mike and I arrived at the race start rather early. Having thought the gun would be going off at 8am, we arrived at 7, only to find that we were wrong, and would have to wait until 9. This would have been fine, except it was arctically cold and windy. We found a warmish spot in the café at Lindeman’s Winery and parked ourselves there for the next 60 minutes.

I spent the hour debating which colour lenses would be best for the race’s varied terrain and getting cold. When it was finally time to get on the bike, I had to retire to our car and switch the heating on for five minutes so I could stop shivering long enough to get my shoes on. The sun got more powerful, though, and after a couple of hill repeats I felt warm enough to strip down to knicks and a jersey.

The neutral start, while still pretty slow, was calmer and gentler today, and pretty soon the car rolled off and we were headed into the infamous climb into Pokolbin State Forest. I tried and failed to stay with Samara’s group, not wanting to let my heartrate go full VO2 because we were in kilometre one of a ten-kilometre climb, so I found a decent rhythm for a while but all that went out the window when I started getting passed, or passing, other riders and groups formed and reformed, attacks and surges went, and a few fast descents popped up. I thought I’d done enough to get a gap on whichever woman was pursuing me but all of a sudden a huge group caught my little group and there was little orange Em, smiling away and making it look easy.

When we finally had ten kilometres of pain in our legs it was time to get into the singletrack. This we did, rather awkwardly. With a big group of competitive, fit men and the first real technical section of the race, the crashes inevitably came. When poor Wayne Evans went down in front of me I was actually grateful. He crashed across the track and we had to stop, and I took the time to say what I thought were some calming words and collect myself. I scooted past and got back up to speed, now in a small group of three or so riders, but still with Em on my wheel and found a much more relaxed and, dare I say it – safe – rhythm on my own.

The ups and downs of Port to Port

There were mishaps, dismounts, and pedal bashes all around me. I got lucky and snuck through a few minor incidents and again, somehow got a gap on Em. Pretty soon the singletrack opened up and we floated over the top of a ridgeline then down into the fabled ‘rabbit hole’ an endless descent that gets narrower and darker as you plummet back to sea level, before a tricky creek crossing and at last, farm roads that become bitumen and eventually point skywards again.

I stopped at the feed zone and grabbed a bottle, then somehow managed to get on the wheel of a strong TTing rider who flew up behind me. We cleaned up one of Em’s Torq Merida teammates and when we passed a bunch of spectators and team cars and I heard cries of ‘Wait for Em!’ I knew she wasn’t far behind. Caught again!

Sure enough a chasing group, including Em, still looking cosy, rode up to us, and there followed five kilometres of abject suffering – spinning out and sucking wheels of significantly faster riders into cross and head winds, just trying to hang on. I inhaled a bar, a gel, then Solo Manned a caffeine gel just as we (at last! Finally!) hit the climb. I tried and failed to stay with the men. Em did too, but I managed a gap on her and rode into the climb to catch a few blokes and was happy with that.

Still, I’d not only got the start time wrong today – somehow I thought the race was 54 kilometres, when it was actually 49. I kept waiting for the ‘hard part’ of the climb to come, assuming I still had five clicks of up-pedalling to go, when Wayne (who’d crashed and chased heroically to get back on) rode up to me and said ‘that’s the top there, then it’s all downhill’. I was kinda dismayed. My caffeine gel hit me about 3 minutes after I crossed the finish line. I was a little talkative in interviews. My little gap over Em held and I grabbed second today, with Bec Locke coming in very close behind us for fourth and Jessica Simpson in fifth.

In the men’s race, Tristan and Kyle Ward (no relation), Michael Potter, Reece Tucknott, and Rohan Adams got away, and worked well together. Rohan suffered a double flat on the Rabbit Hole descent, but the rest of the boys were close. There’s one particularly nasty climb just before the finish line called Briar’s Hill and here things broke up. Tristan took another stage win, with Michael Potter, Reece Tucknott, and Kyle Ward spaced out evenly behind. Ward and Sheppard retain their overall leaders’ jerseys and have both extended their time gaps on GC. You can see the full results online.

Tonight’s Sundown Shootout sees top riders duke it out in a mad dash for cash and valuable time bonuses over a 2.5-kilometre course of berms and jumps at the Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley, while tomorrow’s longest stage may well decide the race.