Stage 7

First off, sorry for the brief blog yesterday.  I was super tired and just in a grumpy mood because of the crappy hotel we'd just shown up to.  That lasted about an hour into Stage 7.  Which I might refer to in the future as my worst day ever on a bike.  The roads were some of the worst I've ever been on, sometimes worse than construction sites!  Add to this a full day of hard headwind and you have a psychologically grueling day.  Realistically, the wind just slows you down, as do the bad roads (even though they kind of hurt my ass a little extra too).  This shouldn't be much different than the mountains, but there's a key difference in my mind.  With climbs I get a downhill to go fast and have fun.  It's a psychological relief and it averages out my speed.  I can also lift my ass of the seat to give it a break.  Headwinds just slow me down.  There's no upside.  If they stop, I'm just back to normal, no bonus descent or anything like that.  So even though it wasn't the longest day in kms, Stage 7 was the longest in time by about 8 minutes of riding and close to another 30min in resting my ass in the van!  In the end, 214.99km in 8:28:51 for an avg speed of 25.4km/h and avg power of only 113W (but the normalized power is right up there at 152W).  And another thing I hate about headwinds is I can't see them coming like a climb.  They're a bit of a sucker punch. 

Unfortunately the quality of the roads has led to another problem.  The handlebar mount that I bought for my gopro camera has snapped.  I'll try and replace it when I get a chance, but that might be wishful thinking over here.  I guess the bumpy roads are hard on more than just my ass!  In the meantime, dad's photo's will be posted, so here's a few to start with.