Day Nine – A funny thing happened…

I woke up pretty early, knowing I had a big hill to get over first thing. I hadn’t ridden over it last night because I was worried that I would get too cold. I wanted to get over it quickly and early now though, because I knew that if I didn’t I would end up suffering through the heat. Beyond the hill though was checkpoint 3. When I started this race in 2017 I got as far as checkpoint 3 before pulling out, so knowing that I was at least within range of equaling that effort was a comforting thought.

The climb was Timmelsjoch, which marks the border between Italy and Austria. It is a beautiful climb. Nice road surfaces with little traffic (especially at that time of the morning). I had a great time climbing it in the cool, though as soon as I reached the top I was quick to put on a lot more clothes, to avoid getting cold – it had been 17 degrees when I set off in the valley at around 4:30 that morning, but the temperature dropped as I climbed, and although it was now a beautiful sunny day it was down to 8 degrees. Knowing that the descent would involve a whole lot of wind-chill as well I was very happy to have some good warm clothes with me.

The descent was also decent – well, ok, it was good fun. Rolling down into Austria I hit the town of Sölden, where there was a huge MTB event in progress. The place was absolutely packed, and even though it was a Sunday there were open bike shops everywhere. I thought about going in to see what could be done to help my rear hub, but the reason they were all open is that they were all busy – I realised I would end up waiting for hours so I decided to just push on and hope. My reasoning at this stage was that the further west I got the easier it was going to be to get any problem fixed. So I pushed on.

At least, I pushed on as far as the first bakery, and then I stopped and spent a long time eating. Really, having someone take an hour to look at the hub wouldn’t have been a big issue, but I wasn’t seeing things that way at the time!

To be honest though, that particular stop took a bit longer than it could have because I got involved in a conversation. Pulling into the bakery I spotted a lightly laden bike that looked familiar, and walking into the bakery I recognised the racer I had discussed hot chocolates with the previous morning. I paused to ask how he was, and his reply was “how long have you got?”

I had virtually no time at that instant, and I said as much – “I need to buy food urgently, but after that I’ll come back and eat it while you tell me of your adventures!”

I bought a solid serving of breakfast (including a regional speciality cake that I would keep for later, but boy when I ate it was it good!) and sat down to hear if anyone else was having as tough a time as me. It turned out that his last day had been even worse.

Obviously, having had breakfast next to each other the previous morning we must have got to Merano within an hour or two of each-other. Now I had made the decision to stop and sleep rather than going over Timmelsjoch at night, but this guy had chosen the other option. He said he enjoyed the climb, but then he got to the top. He was travelling light – really light. Rather than having a warm jacket he had a technique of wrapping his sleeping bag around his torso to keep him warm as he rode. It wasn’t what I had chosen, but if it works it works.

Unfortunately, the previous night it hadn’t worked. Reaching the top he discovered that the new front bag he was using was not in fact waterproof (I said silent thanks to Kedan at Bike Bag Dude and the great team at Tailfin – despite having gone through some very heavy rain my gear was all still nice and dry) and his sleeping bag was soaked through. At that time of night and that altitude it would have been around freezing, and he was faced with the same choice I discussed in my last post, but with everything wet. He had booked a hotel at the foot of the descent, and had checked and been assured that someone would be there to let him in, so he descended in the freezing cold, with windchill, and only the thought of a hot shower and warm bed to keep him going.

On reaching his hotel, there was nobody there. The place was locked, there was no way in, there was nobody to let him in, nobody was answering the phone, and he was soaked through, exhausted, and freezing. Starting a race like this everyone realises (or should realise) that if you mess up you can get yourself into trouble, and he told me that at that moment he could see he was in very big trouble indeed. The town was basically shut down for the night, but finally he spotted a couple of guys walking down the street. They saw him, realised the trouble he was in, and insisted that he sleep on the floor of their room. Sensibly, he accepted their offer, and survived through the night.

We were having this conversation at about 10:30 the following morning, he had only managed to get from the hotel to the first bakery, and had been sitting eating and drinking for several hours and still felt cold.

All the time he was telling this story I was thinking of the storms I had seen before bed the previous night, and was keenly aware that the same could have happened to me. At last, I was comfortable that I made a good decision to stop at a Pension the previous night!

He (like me) had been hoping for a great result in the race, but he had an early crash which left him nursing injuries and way behind his planned schedule (I just hadn’t trained enough, and I knew that at least a month ahead, so at least I had more time to deal with the disappointment). At that point he started talking about pulling out and heading home.

We had a chat about why we were there, and what we were getting out of it, and what we could be doing instead. I was pretty clear already that I wanted to be there, but he seemed much less sure. As we talked though I listed all of the reasons why it was wonderful. I also told him a bit about my own struggles, missed aspirations, aches, pains and injuries, and the fact that now I was just going to keep rolling because even if I didn’t make the finisher’s party it was a brilliant adventure and I was loving it.

I wasn’t trying to persuade him, because you basically shouldn’t be doing something like this unless you want to, but eventually, he seemed like he had resolved to continue. I had finished all of the food I had bought, so I went and got some for the road while he summoned his strength, then we both went outside and got on our bikes. I had already known that I wanted to be there, but sitting down and having a discussion about it at what should have been the lowest point of the whole race for me really helped to crystalise it, and when I hit the road I was feeling great.

It was about another four hours to the checkpoint but I was rolling along in a good mood. It turned out that there was a different bike event happening in the area – the Arlberg Giro, with dozens of people riding along looking exhausted and quite a few signs up saying things like “Nearly there” and “Only 20km more”. I wasn’t really sure what the event was, but eventually rode past a small group of two males on the front and two females behind. 10 seconds later the guys were suddenly up with me, and asking if I was racing TCR. They were in the final kilometers of a 150km ride, and were clearly dreaming of doing more. We chatted for a while before they said they had better drop back because they had to wait for the girls. There was no bitterness, but they clearly accepted that the lower speed was just a part of riding with females.There was visible surprise when I casually mentioned that the current leader of TCR was female!

On reaching the checkpoint the great team of volunteers there greeted me with plenty of sugary sweets on offer, but the bad news that the hotel was closed and I wasn’t going to get lunch there. They also mentioned how many riders had already reached the checkpoint ahead of me, and to be honest, it was fewer than I had expected. Significantly fewer. I had had several days of very slow and weak riding, but there were two things working for me – firstly, most of the other racers were also feeling pretty tired by that time, and secondly, I believe my route up through Serbia and then across had been a very good one. I spent a long time planning that section, and I think it had saved me many hours, if not days.

Anyway, I grabbed the chance to pump up my tyres and lube my chain (much to the amusement of the volunteers as I lubed it link by link – but honestly with the horrible stuff I was using as chain lube I wanted to put on the absolute minimum amount that would cover all the sections that needed to be lubricated) and while doing so I noticed a group of girls walking along dressed in their finest traditional dirndls and it just seemed like an image that couldn’t be missed. After a quick photo with them I headed off to find food.

While enjoying a very fine pizza I met fellow racer Herve (Cap 54) and we had a quick discussion of our routes from that point – he was heading south to Italy while I was going through Switzerland. Rolling away I did wonder who would reach the next parcours first.

The rest of the afternoon was great – there was basically one big climb and then the route I had planned was fast and flat down into Lichtenstein and across to Switzerland.

The rest of the night passed quickly,  starting with actually repeating a section of my route from TCRNo5, along the magnificent flat paths beside the Rhine.

Rolling through Switzerland was great – flat and fast and feeling easy. As I thought about it I suddenly realised that my feet were sore, but actually a lot less so than they had been.

Stopping for the night to sleep on a riverbank without an electric light in sight I realised that I had ridden 293km with over 4,000m of climbing. Those aren’t huge numbers, but they were a lot better than I had been doing, and even better than that it felt like my feet might be starting to recover. I had written off my chances of making the finisher’s party, but suddenly a funny thought occured to me – the day had gone well, and if things went well from here I might just make it after all. If things went well from here.

I really had no way to know if things would go well, but I deliberately refused to take the fact that my SIM card seemed to have burnt through much more credit than it should have, leaving me unable to send a goodnight to my number one supporter, as a sign. I played with it for around half an hour trying to buy more credit, then gave up and slept a happy sleep.