Epic adventures in Paris' time: Day six was a long hard day...

boys at start

So after yesterday 27km time trail we pumped out a top 50 time of the day and pushed us back just outside the top 50 at 55 Men. So all in all where happy to be racing in the front again. Now things can turn so quickly in a race of this calibre with world class riders and guys who have been training for 8-12 months specifically for this event. Day 6 brought on that reality of how tough this race actually is for most. Roeloff woke up in a pool of sweat last night and his gut empty churning. So it was not a good start to what was already going to be a long hard day. After 50km into a super fast paced open road start today (day 6) the Ox (Roeloff) started to fade and found it hard to hang in with the pack and from there things started to deteriorate with over 100km’s to go. Now if anyone has ridden a 100km race they know how tough that is, but to ride 148km with five previous days of hard riding in the legs, hard rocky terrain and throw in a few 8km climbs and soft sand wanting to puke and dump all the way is hard for most to comprehend. However we rode on and paced it slowly and dropped back to nearly the mid field riders. It was a hard and long day in the saddle but completed the course in 7hrs well within the 11hrs cut off time. So the good news is we are still in the race, bad news we have dropped back to around 100th Men and chances now of placing in the front are slim or dashed. As Roeloff is excreting blood out his rear end and skim’s that tomorrow will be a social ride.. but am sure we will cross the finishing line on Sunday either way!