It promised to be a fast course today. I started in Block B and as usual it was neutralised leaving Ossiach. A few kilometres before the race began the guy behind me told me my saddle bag (the little bag with a spare tube under my bike seat) was about to fall off my bike. I looked down and it certainly seemed to be the case. I tried to fix it, fiddling around with the velcro straps. To do this I unfortunately had to slow down loosing my place in the middle of B block. The entire block rode by and I still couldn’t get the thing fixed. The motorbike in front of Bock C was approaching. One of the guys in the front of the block rode up to me and pushed me up the slight incline as I tried to fix the problem, which was nice. It wasn’t happening though so I stopped and rethreaded the velcro. This cost so much time that all of Block C rode past then all of Block D and finally the broom wagon. Oh no… the end of my race before it had even started.
There was no chance of getting a top bunch but I thought I might be able to catch up to some people at least. I time trialled my way back up to the broom wagon. They let me pass and I continued working my way up to the back of D grade. I rode off the front of the first big bunch I found and passed various stragglers. I pulled one guy back onto his bunch and tried the same with another guy. After a good bit of effort I caught up to a bigger bunch and worked with them for a bit. Three people went off the front and I worked at the front of the bunch to chase them but when I looked behind the majority of the people following had dropped off so I rode over the few in front. A strong rider in this group pulled for a while then I had a go. I guess the bunch behind us must have caught up again as there were suddenly riders around us. Achim was in the bunch and shouted out to me whether I had slept in and missed the start.
The bunch was quite speedy and worked well together. I worked up the front with perhaps 15 others. The course was pretty flat with a few gentle ups and downs until around the 20km mark where it started to climb steeply. I held my position near the front of the group but could see riders ahead of us so decided to try and bridge across to them. With effort it worked and I caught them up and rode to the front of this group. There were some familiar riders from the last couple of days in it. We had a nice descent and everyone stayed together over the next climb until we got to the base of the 18% section. I grabbed a banana as I rode past the drinks station with a few other riders. We had lost most of the bunch by this stage and after the descent there were perhaps ten of us.
We motored along the flat everyone working well. I realised my legs were starting to fade a bit so eased off a little and around 82 km we hit the last climb. I remember it from last year and I remember struggling. It has some steep parts. With a lot of panting though I managed to stay near the front and then ride off the front behind one or two other guys once we reached the main road up to Bad Bleiberg. I couldn’t keep up with Sebastian who was in front of me but was still passing the remains of a bunch that had been ahead of us.
I got to the last descent and at some point one of the guys I had passed caught up. I jumped on his wheel and he pulled me and another guy at a tasty pace towards the finish. Surprisingly he just kept pulling and didn’t motion for us to pass so I happily sat on his wheel until 200 m before the finish. He swore at me as I sprinted past and I grinned. We may have been sprinting for 100th place but it was still a race and I’ll take any places I can get.
Overall a nice fast stage and I was really happy how my legs went. They felt strong for essentially the entire stage despite giving them a hammering at the beginning to try and TT up the field. It was a bit sad though that I couldn’t start where I had been in B Block. I may have got quite an acceptable time otherwise. Still, I was happy I could move up the field and didn’t have to ride the entire stage by myself!
Above: The height profile for the stage.
Above: Strava.
Tour de Kärnten 2018 – Stage 5 “Bad Bleiberg” Time: 03:00:18.9 Dst: 95 km Overall Men: 193 Category Place: 95