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This Race is Life and Death to 'the Ticos'

Cory Wallace / 15.11.2008

Stage 3 started much the same as the stage before as Ramirez and Montoya tore the race apart with their epic efforts and the rest of the field was left to eat dust. My day began in the lead group only to succumb to the climbing abilities of the lightweight Ticos as they roared up the hill and I was left to ride in 11th to the top of the 30 km climb.

Today 5 of the top 6 riders were Ticos. This may be surprising to many due to the high level of international competition in the race but as quoted by Thomas Dietch "This race is bigger than the World Championships to these riders". After seeing these Ticos suffer on the climbs and risk death on the descents I can second that statement.

Headlining the National Paper today was a picture of Montoya riding over the top of the main climb then inside the paper was 4 pages of colour pictures and reports. Back in Canada we never see this sort of excitement about bike racing. Here in Costa Rica the pro riders are household names, just like NHL and NFL players are back in America. Anywhere you go the race is on people’s minds. It’s pretty cool to witness this, especially considering the snow coming back down at home in Canada.

Back to the suffering, my mind finally went numb half way up the climb today and time began to flow by quite nicely. I have spent many years tree planting back in Canada and it usually takes about 2 weeks of back-aching work to reach the same mental de-capacity which hits the riders midway through this race.

Once over the top of the climb the descending began which took the riders through 10 km of rolling hills before the last 15 km straight descent to the finish line. Throughout the descent riders are constantly forced to swerve between cows, cars, people and horses. What I find surprising is that none of these seem to even blink when we flash by on our bikes. In Canada for sure a few cows would be flapping their milk sacks, people would be jumping into ditches and horses would be shooting turds, but not here. Pura Vida = Pure life, or in other words, no worries.

After today eating dinner in the mess tent was much different to the excitement and conversations that took place over the first few days. Now it is quiet as people gently chow down their meals while tending to sunburned skin, patching wounds and limping around with aching muscles.

I predict things will be different come mid-afternoon Saturday, sitting on the beach-side bar in the Caribbean with nothing but time to restore our bodies which will have been ripped to shreds - especially after tommorows 125 km ride, 25 km of it on not so smooth rolling railroad tracks.

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