Over the Thorung La Pass

Yak Attack

Over the Thorung La Pass

Phil Evans / 18.03.2010

Stage 7 Manang to Thorong Phedi. (17km 972m ascent/244m descent.)

After a rest day in Manang the riders were eager to test their altitude acclimatisation by racing up to Thorong Phedi at 4450m.

Fears that the rain that had fell on the previous days had settled as snow were soon dispersed as the trails climbing out of Manang were clear. The thinning air meant that the local riders were once again out at the front, but singlespeeder Paul Errington proved that "foreigners" are able to cope at altitude by only conceding just over 30 minutes on first placed Mangal Lama.

At the other end of the scale however, John Williams, suffering from fatigue and the effects of altitude had to concede defeat and take assistance by having his bike portered the final 10km.

Ajay Pandit tailed Mangal all the way to hold onto first place overall and Kaji Sherpa, hoping to use his Everest climbing experience on tomorrowâ€™s stage, finished only 3 minutes later to keep his victory hopes alive.

Stage 8 - Thorong Phedi to Muktinath, (18km, 906m up/1748m down.)

Stage 8, on paper didnâ€™t look too tough, 18km and 906m of ascent. A 5am start, temperatures in minus figures and a gruelling climb from the off however meant that this stage was the hardest so far.

Again the local riders, this time shouldering their bikes for the climb up to Thorong La (the worldâ€™s highest pass) opened up a big gap on their "oxygen deprived" foreign counterparts. Kaji Sherpa proved his mountaineer credentials by striding away from the other local riders and had opened up a 10 minute gap by the time he had reached the 5416m pass.

Paul Errington once again proved his worth at altitude by summiting in just over 2 hours. Unfortunately he couldnâ€™t match the daredevil descending of the local riders down the 1740m of snow covered/scree downhill but still did incredibly well to finish in 4th place

Mangal Lama suffered a set back to his title hopes when he lost the nut of his front wheel scewer and had to walk the entire descent from the summit. UK riders John Williams and Andy Foers found the going up the mountain pass too tough and had to take assistance with having the bikes portered over, which means that only a handful of international riders have ever made it over unassisted.

Kaji pushed hard until the very end to put the pressure on Ajay Pandit, decreasing his deficit in time to only 27 minutes overall, and making for an exciting finale tomorrow.

Overall Top 10 at Muktinath
1 Ajay Pandit - 19:11:52
2 Kaji Sherpa - 19:38:39
3 Mangal Krishna Lama - 20:33:28
4 Chandra Chhetri - 20:49:08
5 Phil Hystek - 23:09:18
6 Paul Errington - 25:21:08
7 Andreas Danielsson - 30:03:12
8 Martin Stenmarck - 30:03:13
9 Andy Foers - 40:44:15
10 John Williams - 43:13:25

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