Round and round we go

Day Totals: 167 Km

Avg. HR: 139bpm

Avg. Speed: 29.2 km/h (excluding aid stops)

Song of the Day: Radiohead – House of Cards

I went to bed a bit apprehensive about today’s ride: I had not ridden this distance since September (though I had done 5+ hour rides), the racers were all starting together today, and the total mileage coupled with yesterday’s ride would put me at my highest 2 day total ever. For the record, tomorrow makes the 3-day high, Tuesday the 4-day high, and Wednesday the 5-day personal best. Fortunately Thursday is a rest day in Luxor which means the day leading into it – Wednesday – is typically shorter. In this case, a benign 59 miles…

The first night’s camping was very comfortable. The overnight low was around 8 Celsius (around 40 degrees) but I was actually too warm inside the sleeping bag. I did need to pee, but really couldn’t be bothered to get up and walk off into the desert to relieve myself – it’s just a hassle to put on all of your clothes. No worries, I have a solution going forward involving an old water bottle. Morning came a bit early and I was dealt another minor dose of reality when I fully realized that no matter if I chose to ride or not, I was not going to be able to sleep in for a long, long time. So, instead I got up, packed up my stuff, grabbed breakfast, and did battle with my bag to properly close it. My bag is simply too small, and with the zippers already showing signs of stress, I’ve decided tomorrow morning to leave my tent and/or sleeping pad out of the bag and strap it to the outside. Hopefully it does the trick and I can take it easy in the morning!

Some of you may be wondering what breakfast consists of so I will tell you. 95% of the days it will be hot cereal/oatmeal/porridge with bread for making peanut butter sandwiches. Continuing with the Michaelangelo approach I’ve adopted for meals, first expressed with yesteday’s lunch of a peanut butter and cheese sandwich, today I went with a classic: whole wheat pita, peanut butter, honey, and bananas. It is worth noting that althoug it is delicious, I struggled to get it down as a result of the 3/4 pound of pasta I ate last night.

The ride got off to a great start with about 14 of us riding together assisted by a wicked tailwind that pushed us through the first 10km at ~42.6 km/h. We were truly flying, but alas, it did not last. We rode in formation before turning onto a different highway at around 20km. At that point, we rounded the ramp and the Red Sea opened up before us. If you were curious, it’s not red… The ride followed the shoreline for the remainder of the day and the view was puncuated by coastl resorts, development of coastal resorts, a good bit of nothing, the odd oil refinery, and one rusted, dilapidated tank that was a holdover from some unknown armed conflict. The group cooperated well, even coordinating a bathroom/suncream break on the shores of the Red Sea. The spot chosen was less than optimal in terms of “cover” for releiving oneself. Normally this doesn’t matter, but the copious amounts of food consumed in the past 3 days necessitated additional biological related business. I hiked a loose dirt bluff and at the top of it was a small, optimal depression in the ground. It really was quite perfect: out of the wind, deep enough to provide concealment, but not so deep as to ruin the view. Truly spectacular, as you can see in the photo.

We made good time to the lunch stop at 70km where I forced down a tuna salad sandwich and some water. It was quite early – roughly 2.5 hours after breakfast – which made eating difficult, but as Paul (aka Madman) from the UK pointed out, “You have to eat all you can when you can”. Fair enough.

Shortly after lunch the winds picked up and the group fractured into a lead group of 4, 2 chasers, and the rest of the bunch. I was in with the rest of the bunch, and soon enough, this group fractured as well. I dropped back, content to ride out my day on my own terms knowing that I was headed into uncharted waters with the mounting distances this week. Shortly thereafter I rode up on Bastiaan, we caught a few others and our group was back to 5. We whittled away the kilometers, but the winds continued to blow off of the ocean. To combat this, we rode in a staggered, overlapping line, similar to one half of the famous “V formation” that geese employ. This helped slightly, and I managed to hang on, but definitely didn’t feel stellar. I was quite relieved when we finally saw the finish flags for the day and could pull over and put away the bike for a while. All in all we made great time and rolled into camp around 1:45pm.

Our early arrival gave us the opportunity to enjoy some mid-afternoon sun, and for once, I felt like I was in a proper desert with all of its warmth, wind, and sand. After making camp, we decided to mount an expedition to the shores of the Red Sea for a quick swim. I say expedition because it was about a 10 minute walk that had us walking through soft sand and climbing over fossil fuel pipelines. The water was cool, but bearable and I plunged in naked to avoid having crusty shorts. Crusty shorts is what happens when your clothing comes into contact with salt water and then dries in the sun. If you do this enough days in succession without washing your clothes (a scenario that is reality on this trip), you can almost crack your clothes. Uncomfortable based on my experiences.

The rest of the day was spent watching fellow riders finish a long, arduous day with a memorable desert sunset in the background. This was a full day – the highs (the Red Sea), the lows (one rider was clipped by a truck [he’s OK and finished the day on somebody else’s bike], and lasting memories of my first full day in the desert. Tomorrow is another 133km (~82 miles) which should seem shorter than the today… I hope.