Navigation stage, the stage that makes the most respect of all the stages. During 60 km they give you only the points where you must get through, and you have to decide the track you think will be the best path. So you can be lucky or unlucky when doing more or less kilometres. From kilometre 60, you must follow the track exactly as they tell you.
6 AM! We wake up with the song “Ho Hey” and, like every day, I wake up with a bang. I am very excited to do a stage through the dunes.
Every day the exit has been neutralized. This means that during a kilometre you have to go behind the car and until the people come out, you can’t push. This has worked out very well for me, since I was very afraid that we would all get out at the same time and that someone would push me to the floor.
Today it is the Skoda Challenge. During one kilometre the fastest runner will have a 60” bonus. And it also means that today the exit will not be neutralized.
Starting line. 8 AM. Go! The exit has not gone bad. We have cycled on one side and everything has turned out perfect. About 5 km on track, and… I’ve seen the dunes of the Sahara desert ahead. At last! Everybody out there in the middle trying to follow the track they thought was best. I mounted on the bike, but immediately I had to push, and although my wheels were quite deflated, I deflated them much more, leaving hardly any pressure (it’s better for the ride). We have been taking our line, trying to go where no one had gone before, so the bike does not sink so much. The truth is that I spent a lot of time on it, passing by a lot of people, except when the dune was very high, then I had to get off. When I was there in the middle, I felt so happy! I looked around me, the landscape was idyllic, with the sunrise through the dunes, people pushing the bicycle… an indescribable feeling. A dream come true!
We managed to get to the first control, which was at the top of the dune, “of course!” It is the Titan Desert, here they do not make anything easy for you. Once crossed, I have hallucinated again, another fascinating landscape full of smaller dunes and in the background the dry desert that we should cross. I got back on the bike doing a lot of stretch (even later, when we finished the stage, people told me that they had seen me how I had crossed them, that I was very good at them).
Once it was over, we were still on the navigation leg. We stopped, removed all the sand from the shoe, which was not little, and inflated the wheels again. We have been cycling following the route we thought was better and following the track that we had in the GPS, we have been pulling through an area of dry lake, a bit rocky, without a path until after a climb of flat stones and a bit of sand we have reached the first water station. We felt very good, so we filled the isotonic bottle and short stop and “go”!
When we had already cycled several kilometres we have seen that we were ahead of the second and even the first couple who, unfortunately, have had mechanical problems that they have been able to solve.
The glory lasted a few minutes, ha, ha, ha! Until the first ones caught us and after about 2 kilometres we took another track and we were left behind.
We continued along a track full of bumps, against the wind, alone, until the first couple, Núria Picas and Edu Barceló arrived, with a few more from their team. We started riding for 2 kilometres until I told Josep to drop a point. They were going too fast and we had to keep our third position. That track became very long! We were alone and with the wind against us and there were still several kilometres to go, until our colleague who came from behind with a large group called us (a strange fact, since he is in the top 45 in the general classification, and synonymous with the fact that we had traversed the dunes very well). We started to roll and so on for about 15 km, until we reached the second hydration point. I was very happy, I felt good and we already had half a race done.
Here we left the group and we took our time to fill up with water, camelback and eat a bar (every hour, salt and ice pill or bar). We have continued through more rocky but fun terrain. Today I was enjoying it, it was the best stage I in the Titan Desert so far. Over the course of the kilometres they have made us climb a very straight climb full of stones where we have had to push the bike, but once up we have thrown ourselves down a slope full of sharp stones and a bit of sand (I only prayed to not puncture), we have passed another control and followed by flatter areas, with dunes and harder terrain and that, suddenly, was soft, so you had to control yourself not to stumble too much and pedal. Before the last hydration station, they made us climb a very cool climb to then go down a steep and somewhat technical descent but I had great fun. We were back at the foot of the dunes, 22 km ahead and the end of the stage. During these kilometres we have continued through bits of dunes, we have passed 2 or 3 villages… A very cool stage! I was enjoying it a lot, it was being the best stage. Finally, we reach the finish line after 95 km, and we saw that they are interviewing the first and second couples. They had arrived only 6 minutes before us! Amazing! Today we have arrived in position 80 of the general, of 420 athletes.
Happy! We continue in third place, 2 hours ahead of the fourth couple and with only one stage to go.