Kristof Allegaert of Belgium is leading Great Britain’s Mike Hall in the Indian Pacific Wheel Race – nicknamed the IndiPac – but the Briton has been struggling first with numbness in his left leg and now with mental fatigue, meaning he is having to take longer stops than would be ideal.
The men, both among the world’s outstanding ultracyclists, are more than a third of the way through crossing Australia from east to west in the coast-to-coast event which began on Sunday.
But Hall, who by his own admission on Twitter has been struggling due to a variety of issues admitted on Twitter earlier today that mentally, he’s not quite in the race – despite still occupying second place.
> Bike check: Mike Hall’s Kinesis GF Ti ready for Indian Pacific Wheel Race
He also founded the Transcontinental Race, which will be in its fifth edition this year, with three of the previous four editions including the inaugural event in 2013 won by Allegaert.
Currently, the Belgian has covered some 1,978 kilometres, while second-placed Hall’s distance stands at 1,907 kilometres as both head across South Australia towards Adelaide.
The route of the 5,300-kilometre coast-to-coast race from Fremantle in Western Australia to the Sydney Opera House in New South Wales, has been planned by organisers to showcase four very different kinds of terrain.
Allegaert and Hall have the desert section, including the vast Nullarbor Plain, behind them, and are currently in the rolling hills of South Australia’s wine country.
Still to come, once the head into Victoria, is the Great Ocean Road then the Australian Alps which forms the border between that state, the ACT, and New South Wales.
In all, 70 riders left the Western Australian coast to begin their unsupported journey across the continent, and all but six are still going.
You can follow their progress on the race’s website – if you haven’t tried keeping tabs on a long-distance bike race in that way before, we should warn you that the activity, known to practitioners as ‘dot watching’ can be strangely compelling.
Here are the Day 4 highlights.
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6 comments
Oh you're right, Donncha's out. Worried about his level of fatigue. Top bloke, shame.
Notice MIke making some small gains on Kristoff at the moment, just 35kms out, with way more sleep overall than Kristoff. Some guesses are putting Kristoff at around 6 hours sleep total
Edit: seems Juju - Juliana Buhring, is out now too.
Looks like Cuttriss is out...
Sarah's dropped Adam Hunter and in fourth. Closing down Donncha Cuttriss - just 10KM away. She is something special for sure.
She definitely has a solid chance at third. Maybe second if Kristoff or Mike run into trouble.
Great stuff. There's about 30k in it at the mo.
I haven't been following this at all: Durianrider only made it about 250/300k? Not enough bananas?
Not forgetting Sarah Hammond, she's absolutely incredible, would love to see her make top 3 overall.
Mike was within 20kms just yesterday, then overnight Kristoff put the hurt back on. There's a 50km gap right now, so it's closing again, but that's because Kristoff has stopped. Mike can catch him as he's nearly done climbing then it's a long descent all the way down to where Kristoff is resting.
Will be an interesting next few hours. If Mike doesn't rest at the bottom, they'll both be together on the next 300 km climb (maybe around 450ish metres over that section?). Mike shattered mentally, but fresh legs after the long descent, with Kristoff well rested all round.
Would be brutal, Mike'll just have to sleep I reckon and hope he's a better climber on the coming 300.