Mongolia Bike Challenge
Stage 7: Bang Goes the Lead
Cory Wallace / 12.08.2011
As the gun went off at 7:30 am, Marzio Deho (Olympia Bikes) immediately attacked. I hopped on his wheel and that was the last of any other racers we would see on the day. At 22km there was a ‘King of the Mountains’ bonus which I took quite handily over the Italian. Apparently the legs were feeling pretty good after the day off.
The next 3 hours we would ride through some cool valleys, crossing over dozens of rivers and through rock gardens. This made for some technical riding and once in a while we would come across a herd of yak or sheep,which would add another dimension to the day as we tried to weave our way through the herds. This was at times sketchy as some animals would startle and make poor decisions at times, causing us to push on the brakes so we wouldn’t cream them.
At 75 km we hit the second feed station of the day on top of a desolate pass. With just 50 km to the finish we had a long gradual decent ahead of us. The ground was very rocky as we followed an old river bed down the valley. The potential to flat was huge so I tried to keep control as Deho got a small 30 second gap which would stay that way until my day turned into a gong show.
The first flat was caused by a rock coming up and hitting my valve stem, bending it in half and causing a unpluggable leak. After putting in a new tube I started the chase back to Deho but then ran over a rusty nail in the river bed. Removing the nail from the tire I first patched the tire and then put in my last tube. This tube lasted 3 minutes and then I was sitting in the middle of Mongolia trying to patch my tube with some duct tape. Gong show. To my luck, the race referee came along and slipped me another tube which luckily got me the last 30 km to the finish line. The damage was done though as Deho had passed through 30 minutes before.
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