The New Yard Stick

Before I blew my fufu!

I would like to announce that I have a new yard stick for the hardest day on the road. http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/95761645

The ride from Vang Veing to Phom koun was 108.6 km long (based on Odometer reading), and pretty much all up... we climbed around 1800m, finishing with an epic 20km or so of relentless climbing. (to put this into perspective; Ohakune ski road climbs around 800m in altitude) To make things more exciting, I made the stupid decision to have a massive feed of fried rice and Omelet at the 60km mark. I was so hungry and hadn't had much for breakfast after we went caving for a couple of hours in the morning. I hit the wall pretty hard at around 63km... don't worry only 1000m left to climb! Geepers! Stripped of everything, I met the little guy inside... and thankfully he said yes because the next 40 or so km were pretty interesting. On a rare and very short decent, a truck came up behind us and blew a tire, I was convinced I was going to go for a dive! Then, as we got near the top (by that time me and the little man inside were managing a blistering 6km/hr) we discovered a number of very strategically placed patches of oil.... this was followed by 2 young men perched in an OP with AK47's... (I sunk a red bull at 95km in an attempt to break down the wall. Team, red bull DOES NOT give you wings!) We did reach the summit and our guest house safely, but did not feel we could guarantee the safety of the road the next day. We took the arguably safer option of the local ute/courier truck to get to Lang Prabag.

Prior to this ride I thought Day 1, Tour de Timor 2011 was an epic ride... this ride had 600m more elevation and 20kg or so more weight on the bike! I don't really want to think to hard about the other challenges posed that day... Lucky Frank Jr is an awesome bike!