116km ahead, a long stage awaits us, with a lot of heat and wind. Placed on the starting line in the second drawer, they give the starting shot and we come out on top, but suddenly I start to hear a noise and I see that my camera bag is falling. Well, luckily that’s it. We step aside and move on! Unlike the other days, we are already starting to climb. I notice that the legs don’t go, but they immediately get in tune. We are going at a pretty high pace.
We start the first kilometers on a very rocky terrain, and continue climbing until we make a technical climb full of stones where there are many people who end up getting off the bike. When we reach the top, we come down a dune, which just climbs to the ground and I hit my leg, but I immediately get up and walk down the bike. Here we go! It begins the long terrain by crossing a dry lake full of stones that looks like you are going to the moon, we advance miles and miles, so without stopping to climb “false plain” that is called. It is already getting very heavy and today we have many kilometers ahead and with the wind against us.
We are doing the stage very alone. Today we will have to pull our heads rather than our legs. We have moments of a lot of stone and moments of small dunes that slow down our bike. This is wearing us down. We continue with the wind against us and on very heavy terrain, where the descents do not exist today; we just have to go up. It’s going to be the hardest stage we’ve done so far. Today the average is coming out lower, it’s hard for us to pedal. Unlike the other days, it’s getting really heavy, we go alone and when a group passes we can’t keep them. Today it’s time to think that we are here because we want to, we already knew it was hard, so we go cycling and let the miles go by. When we have covered about 80 kilometers, we still have 26 left and, already very tired, we see the dunes and my eyes open. Go, Cris, this is already here, but the miles go by and we see an immensity of spectacular dunes, but we don’t see the camp anywhere, so we keep pedaling, which is still left. I’m really exhausted, I have a hard time keeping up and I have to tell Josep to slow down, I can’t keep up. Wow, there’s little left! Until after a very long stage where we have been cycling for 6 hours, we see the end. I’m exhausted, but when we get to the Erg Chebbi finish arch I’m amazed at the scenery, a camp surrounded by a sea of dunes, just amazing. We continue on 🥉position.