The Stage That Broke Me: Stage 5
57.9km, 1,669m, three climbs, and one moment I never thought would happen in six years of virtual cycling.
I’m writing this nearly two days after completing the fifth “race.” That’s how much time I needed off the bike, away from cycling entirely, to process what Stage 5 did to me.
The pens
It was 9:20 pm on a Saturday night in Melbourne, the temperature sitting around 10 degrees Celsius (or roughly 50 (F)reedom Units), and I remember thinking I would rather be anywhere else in the world right now. I was already dreading what was ahead.
My eyes flicked between the countdown in the pens and the A3 route profile printed in glorious colour, perched in front of me. This is the Colombia Mountain Route: 57.9km, 1,669m of elevation gain, three climbs, with a few flat kilometres scattered between these nightmares like false hope. And let’s not forget the side and headwinds thrown in to keep everyone honest. Averaged out, that’s 2.9% for 57km, with 43% of the time spent battling shitty wind of some description.
To whoever at MyWhoosh HQ decided this was a good idea for Stage 5, I have just one question: who hurt you?
Small mercies
There’s always something positive if you look hard enough, and in this case, it was Tim Sharp inviting me to join his Discord channel. Fantastic. Listening to the banter, the chat, the effort made the suffering slightly easier to carry. Bjorn was there, Scott too. Other names I recognised from previous stages, Rune, Tomi, drifted in and out. I’m sure there were more, but the voices started to sound the same after the first hour. I was silent for a lot of it. I could talk, or I could breathe. Rarely both.
Some might say Stage 5 was difficult enough on its own. But hearing that one of the guys was completing this stage on his wedding anniversary, which he had forgotten (and therefore purchased zero gifts for), reminded me there’s always someone who has it worse.
The first climb
The stage kicked off, and it actually felt like a race for about ninety seconds. Even the front recognised this would be a difficult day before I was gapped.
I averaged 10.6km/h and 200W for the first climb, just over 30 minutes, nothing I’ll be hanging on my wall anytime soon, especially knowing the bigger climbs were still ahead. I eventually caught up to Tomi as the Cat 5s caught up to us.
Through the flat section between climbs one and two, I reeled in Javier. Passing another Cat 6 back marker on a climb usually gives me mixed emotions, but I’ll admit I was secretly pleased to claw back a position wherever I could.
Paso Alto
The Paso Alto Climb started just before the clock ticked over one hour, and this one was going to take a while. Every subtle flat spot, even 40 or 50 metres of it, was anxiously awaited and gratefully received, even after I sacrificed a spot to Sacha Ott early on.
Tim Sharp was about three minutes up the road, so I fixated on the gap, watching it fluctuate. One moment it was 2:50; the next, it was 1:30 and then it was back to 2:40. My vision tunnelled, and when I wasn’t locked on the time gap, I was watching the names chase me. Bjorn is doing 2.5 watts per kilo while I’m grinding out 1.9. How is he doing that? I blocked it out and went back to Tim. Ohh, 54 seconds, awesome. Oh wait, it’s actually 1:18. WTF? And it went on like that for some time. Each swing encouraged me and made the day feel less manageable at the same time.
I eventually caught Tim at the top of Paso Alto, and with two climbs ticked off, I started to believe I could actually make it to the end of this stage. But you know what they say about the light at the end of the tunnel.
Climb three, and the cracks forming
Having someone to ride with always helps, especially into an 11km/h headwind. The chat got a bit more animated, and it was genuinely motivational to watch my speed climb above 15km/h for a change. Anything to stay ahead of Bjorn and Michael, only 50 seconds back by this point.
Just as the flat section between climbs two and three had lifted my average speed, it did exactly the same for Bjorn and Michael, who came sailing past at the start of climb three. That’s fine. I know who my friends are now.
We’d been at it for two hours and eighteen minutes, and with my speed, power, and heart rate all gradually dwindling, I knew the finish was still a long way off. That’s when the mental struggle started to make itself known. Really known. I knew I just had to keep turning the pedals and I’d eventually reach the end, but the combination of remaining distance and accumulated fatigue was doing everything it could to convince me otherwise. I kept pushing the thought out of my head as I kept trucking along with Tim. But with every turn of the pedals, every metre of elevation gained, the intrusive thoughts came back, and the doubt started to feel louder than the effort.
And then it happened
At 3 hours, 6 minutes, and 54 seconds, I did something I have never done in six years of virtual cycling.
I stopped. Only for about a minute, but it was enough.
It wasn’t the distance remaining, only 7.1 km at that point with half of it undulating. It wasn’t the gradient, even though we were sitting on a 9% segment at that exact moment. It wasn’t the four other stages already sitting in my legs. It wasn’t even the fact that it was 12:26 am. Honestly, I’m not sure what it was.
It’s easy to point at those things and call it an answer. Sure, this has been tough, double tough. But really, it’s nothing I haven’t done before, in some form or another, indoors or out. Whatever it actually was, mentally, I had cracked. I could have stopped the ride right there, recorded a DNF, and moved on, and no one would have cared. No spectacular headlines. No calls of commiseration. The world would have kept spinning regardless.
Instead, I sat up, I took a drink, reassured the others I was okay, waited about a minute, then took three attempts to clip back in before I started turning the legs again. I didn’t feel better. I just kept going.
The finish
Eventually, I reached the top, and with about 3.5km to go, I caught up to Tim again. We pushed to the line together, and yes, I did snake him on the finish, though something tells me he eased up, most likely out of sympathy, I suspect.
At just over3 hours and 40 minutes, Stage 5 was done. I’ll remember this one for a while, with a mix of accomplishment and disappointment. I guess whatever doesn’t kill you, right?. Anyway, the rest day can’t come soon enough.
Stage 6 is the TT, which people seem to have feelings about: the lack of a draft and how that will factor into their strategy. However, riding solo isn’t new to me, so it’ll be business as usual.
There are only two stages left. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and I genuinely don’t care whether it’s a train or not. Either way, I’ll finally be out of my misery, and that’s something I can look forward to.