Morning Ride

Leg warmers back on

Classico

Bobbo

Don’t ask about a climbing trail 🤣

The term 'rolling out' wouldn't be appropriate for today's sprint start. The first wave knew all too well the importance of good positioning before heading into the Moke Lake loop – similar to yesterday – before turning full circle around and heading back towards the start area and north bound. Having already spoken about Dan and my ability to hustle the opening few kilometres, we entered the fast and flowy Moke Lake trail near the head of affairs.

It didn't take long for the bunch to thin out and with steep and nasty climbs towards the Moonlight Trail, the group split momentarily into pairs as we made our way through the technical high point. Riders from last year may remember the Moonlight track from stage one, but from the reverse direction and while today was touted as easier than the other direction, I'm really not so sure.

I'm never been one to object to a little cold start but with barely a single digit showing on the Wahoo this morning, my hands clearly found their limit. As soon as the blood started rushing to my legs, it promptly left my hands and at one point (no word of a lie), I honestly thought my brake lever had fallen off.

"I could hear Alex trying to explain something about his hands not working to another rider in our bunch. The pace was too high for me to show much concern, I was just hoping that he was going to be able to operate his brakes on the next descent," said Dan at the finish.

I panicked momentarily before soon having an opportunity to check the status – the lever was under my frozen index finger the entire time.

Up onto the Moonlight and team Cyclist Australia/NZ was in its own little world. Off the back of the front group but with a large gap to the chasers behind, it's this no-man's-land where I seem to live at every one of these stages races. The Mongolia Bike Challenge and Crocodile Trophy were no different.

Down the other side of Moonlight and onto varying sections of the Queenstown Trail had us moving well – the gazelle-like legs of Dan doing more than his fair share of the work. After two stages, it seems that if Dan can take care of all the 'wind work', I can help us negotiate the singletrack. So far, so good.

"Today was one of the smartest stages I can remember us riding as a pair. We were Zen," said Dan. "Despite being with the lead group of ten early on, we were distanced within a minute or two of it getting hard. From that point we just rode our own race, consumed a heap of calories and looked after our bikes and bodies as best as we could. It actually made for such an enjoyable stage – once it warmed up!".

After 50-odd kilometres, we hit the base of Coronet Peak and settled in for what would be the major climb of the day. The 800m vertical ascent started along tough and soft access roads before spitting us out onto the bitumen for the grind to the ski resort. Some 50 minutes later and we reached the good stuff with Rude Rock and the newly renovated Bush Creek Track taking us back to ground level over the next 15km.

While both huge fans of downhill, the demands of these tracks leaves absolutely no room for rest with my heart rate supremely elevated due to the high-speed and technical nature of both tracks. The final stretch into Arrowtown, while still mostly down, must have featured more than a dozen creek crossings and with plenty of slippery stuff in between, the final 10km were engaging to say the least.

Finally onto the flat and across the finish line in Arrowtown, the two of us both commented on just how well we rode together across the day. I did my part by keeping Dan on a tight leash and he did his bit by remaining calm and in control in all the sections between. Fifth place overall is one up from yesterday but with four challenging days still to come, all we can do is take it one stage at a time.

Melde dich kostenlos an. Verfolge deine Fortschritte und erreiche deine Ziele. Schließe dich 100 Millionen aktiven Menschen auf Strava an.

Mehr von Alex anzeigen

Top-Sportarten

Alex Malone

Pioneer - Stage 1

6 Fotos

8 Kommentare

Segmente

Melde dich an, um weitere Aktivitäten von Alex Malone zu sehen

Morning Ride

Leg warmers back on

Classico

Bobbo

Don’t ask about a climbing trail 🤣

Möchtest du mehr sehen?

Die beste App für Läufer und Radfahrer