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Stage 2 - Chiru Endurance Racing Bikes

pierre arnaud le magnan / 30.04.2010

Starting the race in the late afternoon for many is a tiring idea in itself. For me, knowing full well you must sit tight the whole day, avoiding nerves for the inevitable starting gun that just seems to drag out your entire day and meanwhile not managing to be particularly useful managing your time.

In our case, 4pm came all too soon. We headed out from the hotels immediately after lunch. Being that we are in a tea growing area of China, we were tasting some of the most amazing tasting fresh green all morning, right up until lunch then it was time to ship out. What a race preparation. Green tea tastings! I guess that’s what makes this race just so much more than just a race!

Lining up on the starting line again for Stage 2 of the race, we were already nervous of what was to come. The temperature was hot, the sun shone on many of the starters and sweat was already dripping off more than a handful of competitors. I was just plain anxious. The main concern for me was the 36km paddle in the middle of the night in inflatable kayaks, ouch! A fast time was predicted to be within 6 hours 30minutes.

The gun fired. We were off, on the first section of Stage 2 of the race – a 13km trail run. The pace was furious, it felt like our team was just whipping ourselves along a thin dirt fire-trail up some switch backs, in search of the ridge top. The Chinese teams seem to have an amazing ability to explode out at the start unlike many of the other foreign teams. However, with the day only just begun there were to be many stories still to be lived down.

The ridge top gave us some respite, as the trail evened out, although Tony, our legendary on-road biker, found a tree rut, and twisted his knee a second time in 2 days. These types of races have no boundaries and only tails to tell all should you actually make the finish line still in one piece. The downhill was Claire’s’ our female teammate favorite discipline and she actually took off down the hill with the rest of us drafting her all the way to the bottom. We passed a couple more teams on the downhill before long the bike transition was in site. Scores of small Chinese school children cheering us on as we crisscrossed some pebble stone trails into Gizmo villages. This is one of the most amazing features of this race, the screaming little kids, all waiving flags and cheering on competitors all day.

For Team Chiru Endurance Bikes the transition was a little slower than what we would have hoped, desperately, trying to pack in some extra carbs and unattach the towline that was still in a knot, from having tangled itself. The bikes themselves, are more like weapons stiff carbon monocoque frames that stick to the loose surface trails whilst still with the added stiffness in a bottom bracket giving agility and responsiveness. Within the space of 15mins from the start of the 36km off road biking leg we had already caught 3 more teams and passed them. Towing each other sometimes in a train of 4 if not 3 is a site to see certainly for the locals.

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