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news
IPWR Day 11.PNGGrandstand finish in prospect at Indian Pacific Wheel Race as Mike Hall takes lead (+ video)
The Indian Pacific Wheel Race is heading for a grandstand finish after Great Britain’s Mike Hall made up 100 kilometres on Belgium’s Kristof Allegaert yesterday to snatch the race lead.
With a little over 600 kilometres of the 5,300 kilometre coast-to-coast race from Fremantle to Sydney Opera House remaining, the drama has gripped ‘dot-watchers’ – people who follow the riders' progress through the online tracker.
The pair are expected to hit the New South Wales capital early on Friday morning local time, and many expect their fight to go to the wire.
Hall had struggled with injury and mental fatigue during the early days of the race across the Nullarbor Plain and for several days Allegaert maintained what seemed to be a comfortable lead.
The situation changed dramatically overnight, however – although quite how the Briton managed to overturn the deficit isn’t quite clear yet.
On Monday, Allegaert hit Melbourne five and a quarter hours before Hall, who arrived there at 4.20pm, and the Belgian maintained his lead throughout Tuesday.
Last night, though, the situation changed dramatically.
Allegaert arrived at the Omeo checkpoint just before 9pm on Tuesday evening. Hall reached it just after 3.30am on Wednesday morning – six hours later.
But it seems from the checkpoint timings that Hall had already grabbed some much-needed sleep, while Allegaert was still to rest – and by the next checkpoint at Falls Creek, the British rider was just 20 minutes behind his rival.
Soon after, he would be in the race lead and at the last checkpoint in Granya had an advantage of 16 minutes.
Indian Pacific Wheel Race leader Mike Hall smashing it through Bright. We offered a beer...but there was no stopping for Mike! #ipwr pic.twitter.com/e1qLktfVMO
— Bright Brewery (@BrightBrewery) March 29, 2017
There’s a lot of racing left though as the pair head through the Australian Alps towards Canberra and, ultimately, Sydney – and more than one observer has wondered whether Allegaert may have grabbed some extra sleep ahead of a final push to the Pacific, while Hall may still need to rest.
The race seems to have captured the public’s imagination in Australia, and is even being followed by one of the country’s biggest names in cycling.
Wow! Didn't expect to wake up to this, this morning. Looks like it'll be an interesting last 1,000km! #ipwr https://t.co/MGIK6EgHuo
— Simon Gerrans (@simongerrans) March 29, 2017
Ahead of the race lead changing hands, both Hall and Allegaert featured in the Day 11 race video.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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26 comments
I'm sure people enter for a range of reasons other than trying to hang with the front, but it looks like a lot of them were naive about just how taxing it would be. Personally I'd have more fun touring it as I like to get 8 hours sleep in and piss around having a 2nd or 3rd coffee.
As an aside has anyone noticed Kristof looks to be finding time for a daily shave, contributing greatly to still looking fresh as a daisy. This is all part of my theory that he is some kind of Belgian psyops master.
Some of the backmarkers are out, but don't seem to have been struck out yet (Coops's last date was a week ago). I think the back is somewhere round Juju - still 2000km in, so good going (how long's it taken her to get back there?!).
The back-middleish guys are at around 3000km, impressive stuff, 12 days in - and some of them no doubt proving themselves to 'have what it takes' (CyclingMaven is still in there, as is mangorider
).
not forgetting there is a local (as in Aus') female in 3rd place and riding very strongly - certainly will finish a close third, higher if an unlucky serious mechanical
Safe bet there barb
Feeling bad for the guys right back, forgot all about them until now. Some, like Coop, seem to struggle doing more than 100 to 150km a day. Not sure I'd enter something like this if I was at that level. Could just be the trackers playing up though.
In fact I'll stick my neck out further and say I reckon 1 2 and 3 are not going to change.
I don't know about the gears, but Kristof is on record as saying that tyres over 25mm are for mountain bikes. Let's face it, these guys are tough! Maybe too soon to call but I think it's in the bag for Allegaert now.
Apparently Mike's on a standard chainset with 11-25 on the back. Anyone know if that's true. Find it hard to believe.
Mike's reaching the final 1/3 of the last big climb before the lumpy run in, after what looks like a wise shopping trip into the local town after his last (possibly enforced, he's been complaining of poor vision) kip-stop. Kristof is nearly 150km down the road, but looks like he is going to need a rest somewhere after 24hrs without sleep. Will he be stopped long enough for Mike to catch him again? I doubt it, but who knows with this race...
I'm fairly new at this cycling malarky, but is it normal to stare at a few moving dots on a screen for the last few days?!
Weirdly riveting.
yes, you are fine
Mike seems stopped here at the moment, hence Kristoff making good ground. Wondering why he came so far down when there's similar ground closer to his route.. Must be a good reason. Maybe he went shopping there and was actually on his way back up towards the route.
http://tinyurl.com/me5pm6h
There's some good data here showing how they've been pacing it
I reckon provided Kristof got some sleep last night then he's away. If he gets over or at least a decent way up that hill then Mike has to wake up and chase him up a 1300m climb.
Awesome that, cheers!
There was some information on the Facebook page: Kristof stopped for about 8 hours part way up a climb, but said he only slept about 3, because of very cold temperatures.
Mike will need to stop, but will he have better conditions for proper rest?
And those are looong KMs too. Kristoff is around 640 meters above him.
Looks like Kristof is pulling away again, while Mike was stopped in Towong Common for over an hour. Showing 27km between them here. Is Mike's surge with no sleep catching up with him?
How do you get teh riders to display on the map in the first place? The tracker is just totally unuseable... or im stupid..
There is a pop up video window i had to close first to see the map behind it.
No way! Back from lunch and Kristoff is back up front. 2km on my screen, predictive is off. Would have loved to have been a fly on Mike's bars as Kristoff pulled up past him.
Bet it was dead civil.
In a bitter stab-you-in-the-back-tonight kinda way
Both these guys must be at their very edge now. Has either of them ever faced this level of competition before? AFAIK both of them are used to smashing the field.
Will come down to who has the right gears (it seems Hall wanted some bigger cogs on the back) and who can sleep less. Brutal. This area, while not the Alps, is frecking demanding and proper hilly and up and down for ever. Check out the profile below. 1500m up! I think there was an infamous Audax 1200 went over this way a few years ago and just about killed everyone!
Capture.PNG
They are both at the Walwa Checkpoint. What the hell do you say to each other? It's a 600km race to the finish. Brilliant.
...and the status page just refreshed itself, with Hall in the lead again.
Apparently the page is not 100% reliable, with notable time gaps between location updates.
Its not the website, it depends on how their tracking devices are set up and how good a signal they have to transmit as to how often we will get an update. You need to check the time stamp for their location to work out actual comparisons too.
I think you need to turn the "predictive" off to get a true situation
I've just had a look at it seems Allegaert is in the lead again.
Somebody commented on the facebook page that they were with Allegaert when Hall went by — according to them, ten minutes later Allegaert was on his bike chasing.
Looks like Kristof's back in front as at 10pm on the 29th Aussie time