vuelta a Ibiza - 2

Day 2
San Antonio - Sant Augusti

Another sunny day :)

The first 6 km was neutralised from the centre of San Antoni to San Augusti, I had to pee and so just as I started so did the race and I was left behind. It took a good ten minutes and all of the worst lines on the climb for me to get back to Jane. Luckily for me she was being held up on the climb by slower riders. This was a great climb and a new way up to Serra Grossa? Last year in the Extrem we'd come up the other side which is a hard hike-a-bike section. Next was a mad loose descent with a few sand traps to keep you alert. The next climb was the climb of Sa Capalleta, we'd done this one a couple of times before. Last year in stage one and also in the extrem. Here we caught up with Marí Elena one of the strong girls from CC Santa Eulalia, she had dropped like a stone on the last descent - but was struggling on this technical climb. Jane gained easily, but couldn't get past on the narrow line available. The inevitable happened and Marí slipped and ended up sideways across the trail. There was nowhere to go so Jane dabbed. Once past we quickly grabbed a coke at the avituallamente at the top and pushed on.

Puig den Serra - Suddenly there was a queue in the singletrack and as we round the trees I remember the water crossing from last year. At three metres across it was a brown serous liquid with a few tennis ball sized stepping stones dotted across. Most were wading, but Jane lifted her bike and skipped across every stone while everyone just stared!!. I thought I'd try the same, but slipped off the first stone up to mid calf in the gloop...doh! On the climb out I complemented Jane on her sure footedness. She said 'Well I didn't want to mess up my new shoes!!' :)




We now began to recognise the route again and that the next avituallamente was close. I was out of fluids now, so needed to fill up. We pushed hard down the road section into town and rounded the corner only to see ....no check point! Panic!!! But, just out of town there it was on the clifftop. Buena vista. One of the helpers told Jane that she was lying in second place. We began the gradual climb to the very ungradual climb of Puig d'en Serra. A couple of small technical climbs took us to where we caught up with Keith in last year's extreme. At the foot of the climb we turned left onto the broken asphalt. I made the mistake of looking up and heard myself groan involuntarily. It's granny time!!
Heads down, chains all the way to the left we start the grind. At first we start to pull in the riders still on their bikes, and then as it steepens more we pass riders walking. At the top Bartolo shouted 'animo' as we crested and dropped down the loose rocky descent. At the bottom we came across the short sharp carry under the chain from last year. Since then who ever had put up the chain last had decided it wasn't enough and had replaced it with a fence! We hauled the bikes over and pushed on with the last big climb now in sight - Sa Atalaia. I must have looked bad here because one of the roaming marshalls pulled alongside and offered me a gel :) I declined but said 'darlo a mi novia' and he gave it to Jane. As we approached the foot of the next climb Jane shouted ' la meta!' , and just up the road was the finish! We thought that we had one more climb. We passed through and they told Jane she was third - the others had been mistaken.