Hey, Day 3 has been a tough one!
I was really looking forward to some new trail today. After the silt and whoops of yesterday, anything new sounds good. Well as it turns out today ride featured some pretty cool stuff. There was a little bit of cool single track and a couple of really good hillclimbs. The
Honda loves hillclimbs.
"It was pretty rough, one of the hardest days I remember."
That was the good news, the bad news was that the sand whoops of the first two days were just a warm up for the serious sand whoops of Day 3 and, unfortunately, Day 4 also. Now by sand whoops, I mean like San Felipe sand whoops - huge and seemingly endless. For a solid hour we had to pound through these, twice! Then we are going to do it twice again for Day 4. It was pretty rough, one of the hardest days I remember.
Chilly (right) and Amanda Mastin (left) try to recouperate as the teams start to feel the strain. Halfway and our rider is holding up well, but not looking forward to Day 4.
We did all make it through today. Fortunately no American riders went out today. The ISDE is always and adventure and seemingly simple courses can become very bad after 500 riders cover it a couple of times. I have to say it is hard to look forward to day four, it is going to be a real struggle. Day five will be a new course and the mileage will be shorter, so we just have to get through tomorrow and it should be downhill from there.
I hear that Juha (Salminen) went out today, that his Beemer gave it up. Now I am off to have my second dinner and hopefully get some good sleep tonight.
Keepin' it sandy,
Chilly
