Death March to Bani

Holy Independence DAY Dominican Republic! Today marked not only the holiday but the “other mountain” stage. This also meant that we had to take an hour long bus ride to San Christobal in the morning. I opted to stay in bed a little longer, since I woke up with a stomach bug. My appetite was completely gone, but multiple rounds to the bathroom were plentiful. This was really about the last thing I needed to get through the day.

Based on the information given to us, the climbs were at 70km and 125km. As other riders referred to the stage as somewhat of a Death March, due to the fact we were riding through the very windy and arid desert area of the Island. I was doing the best I could to stay positive with all of this awesome insight.

We actually got to the start about an hour and half early and started the wait for our bikes. Thankfully they showed up 30 minutes before our start. Since we had a town start, this meant a neutral roll until the real start 4km later. Typically the start was aggressive from the gun, but only lasted about 40 minutes this time. The neutral start helped the legs feel a little better, but my stomach was in knots. As we started to hit the rolling hills before the 1st climb the group seemed to get smaller and smaller. After going over the first climb the group had shed 30 or so riders.

As we made a virtual U-turn through town, and hit the slew of speed bumps I heard a crash behind me and not but 10km later, Justin had rode up to me and said Josh had gone down. There was nothing we really could do for him at this point and the speed had already picked back up. As we headed into the last climb I felt ok and made sure to stay at the front, but as soon as we hit 1km to go I completely blew up, I did everything I could to stay within the caravan, hoping to get back at the top. I found myself in a group of 4 riders for the last 20km. It was super hot and I was just happy to make it in. Once we hit the finishing town of Bani, we had 3 gnarly corners and then a finishing straight that had speed bumps and metal drainage systems every cross street. It was almost safer to be in that group.

Jaime and Justin finished a few minutes in front of me, and we later saw josh jump out of an ambulance. He told us that bunny hopping over one of the speed bumps his fork had sheared off at the steerer tube. He walked away with only a few patches of road rash. He was very lucky.

After we calmed down after the finish, finding our lunch was more than a task. We wondered around a plaza for 10 minutes trying to find the building and kept getting the same “general” directions like “oh its right on the other side of the road” or “just that way”. We opted to pay for a meal and have some American pizza and coke. The cold liquid was amazing after a super hot day.

We made our voyage back into Santo Domingo and showered up. Now just kicking back and writing this while things are still fresh in my mind. Tonight is “Carnival” and I think we may explore since we need to relieve some stress after everything adding up over the past 9 days here. Tomorrow we have our final circuit race and hopefully I can find my legs for the sprint again.