Brasil Ride 2012 - Day 2

Queen stage :-)

Things I learned today:
The reason why this race is a 2 person team event
One month is not enough time to prepare for this event no matter how fit or experience you are
Garmin 500 battery life is just over 10 hours
My bike is lighter than Trever's

Stage 2 we were told was the hardest stage with a distance of 90 miles and over 10000 ft of climbing. It sounded menacing and it was. The stage started with 10 miles of paved road and then another 10 on a rolling dirt road. We covered the first 20 miles in about 1 hour. We rode with the lead pack for the first 10 miles and decided to back off and be conservative. It was going to be a long day.

I knew Trever was not having a great day when he started falling off of my pace on the climbs so I started backing off or slowing down at the top of the climbs. We made to the halfway point in about 4 hrs and thought we were doing good time. Not slow, not fast. Steady.  The weather was cooperating also with light rain for the first 4-5 hours. I was trying to help by pushing when I could.

This is about when things started to get ugly. Trever was looking worse even though he was eating and drinking. We hit the first singletrack which was fun and we kept motoring. At about mile 60 we started the most difficult crazy 30 miles. About 10 miles of technical singletrack with tons of steep hike-a-bike sections. This section was called vietnam. By the way I HATE VIETNAM!!

Just before the tough section Trever clipped his handlebars on a rock and did the most amazing endo. It was a thing of beauty. He landed hard on his shoulder and I truly thought he was done. I expected a broken collar bone or damaged shoulder. Luckily he only bruised his thigh, took some skin of his shin (nice memory of Brazil) and bruised his hand. We sat for maybe 5 minutes and then continued on.

At this point I was very worried about Trever. He looked bad so I started taking his bike on the hike-a-bike section and pushing both bikes up the hills while he walked, drank and ate. I was feeling very good. Felt strong. (this is why this race is a two person team event - you never know what can happen and why I know my bike is lighter than his).

Trever is one of the most fit people I know and has done more stage races than anyone I know, we've done a few events together and he has pushed and pulled me on more than one occasion so it felt good to be able to repay and I was set on doing everything I could to get him to the finish line.  I must say that Trever only got a one month advance notice about this race while I have been preparing for 3-4 months.

We finally made it out of Vietnam and to the last aid station. We got Trever some medical help. They checked his blood pressure, gave him some anti nausea medication and forced him to eat and drink. We were probably there for about 30 minutes. All we had left was 13-14 miles of dirt road, 3000 ft of climbing with pitches up to 30%.  OUCH!! We had 4 miles of rollers then the big climb and finally the descent into the finish. I pulled Trever again at the bottom and then the doors fell off. All of a sudden it was me feeling nauseous. I had to get off my bike a few times when it got too steep. At one point I got off the bike, took my helmet off and sat down. Another 10 minutes lost. Cramps started hit me near the top so I had to pedal one legged while still climbing.

Top of the hill and 2 mikes to the finish. Relief!!  We made it to the finish in about 10:30 hours. Barely!!  Trever got two I.V. Bags in him while I found us a hotel (1 mile climb - MOFO).  Rode back into town, got some burgers, picked up our luggage, dropped off bags and hitched a ride to the hotel. An exhausting fucking day,,

Tomorrow is the XC day so we don't have to ride together five laps of a 4 mile loop. I wonder how much energetic I'll have. At least it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. Stay tuned.