The longest stage
The alarm goes off. I thought it was cold yesterday, but today beats it by a mile. There’s been a frost like I’ve never seen in my life; it’s really hard to pack up the tent, the fabric is frozen solid and looks like it’s going to shatter into pieces. I eat breakfast in my cycling gloves, even though they’re full of… grime. No, there’s no way of warming up. Bright and early we make our way to the start of the ninth stage, the longest of all, with 144 kilometres and 2100 metres of climbing.
A fast start through a beautiful valley. We spend our time fording rivers of icy water; someone even takes the chance to have a dip.
Luckily the climbing begins. I say luckily because there’s no way of warming up, even though the sun is shining and there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. The first climbs take us to a very, very pretty rolling section, with fast ground that’s easy to ride. At last we can turn the pedals!
I join Daniel Becerril, and the kilometres fly by. I’m really enjoying this stage, it’s beautiful. A little further on we catch Luis and Paolo Angaroni, a very friendly Italian. Little by little we clock up kilometres and ford rivers, until in one of them we see… the maglia rosa! What’s going on here, how can we have caught the leader at kilometre 80 of the stage?
We cross the river; it seems Marzio, the leader, misread the “deep river” sign and went several kilometres out of his way. Dani, on the other side of the river, tries to persuade him to cross. Meanwhile Paolo, from the river, tells us the water is very cold (or something like that), I (in 18th place) tell him to tell him to get lost, while Luis doesn’t understand a thing.
In the end we persuade him, he thanks us, fires up the engine and disappears over the horizon. How this guy rides…
On the next climb we lose Paolo, who gets dropped. Further on we ride close to some gers, traditional Mongolian tents, to cut off a bit of the route. A couple of dogs come after us with the worst of intentions. We get one hell of a warm-up and manage to escape alive; I think dogs are dogs anywhere in the world…
Dani and Luis’s pace is too much for me, and I drop off with 30 kilometres to go: my legs are starting to hurt too much and there’s still another stage left. We ride through a small town with tarmac streets. It feels like we’re flying over the tarmac, it’s been so long since we rode on a smooth surface! The fantastic feeling vanishes after barely a kilometre and we’re back on the track. Oh well, I’ll ride on tarmac again back in Spain.
On the last stretch I have a bit of a rough time: my stomach starts to bother me and anything I try to eat makes me feel sick. Oh well, it’s not that far to the finish, all out.
Finally I reach the finish after 6 hours 33 minutes, 26th on the stage and 26th overall… half a minute off the nice Italian, looks like it’s going to be war to the end. Tomorrow, the last stage!!