I just briefly spoke with Stu at the finish of the Day 5 biking stage. After losing 2 minutes on the first section of the ride they completed the second section leg in phenomonal time, putting in a huge effort and taking 15.5 minutes out of 3rd placed Vibram Sport2000.
"We had a really good second part of the ride - Vibram Sport2000 used skinny tyres, which while being advantageous earlier in the race on the hard, fast road surfaces proved to be a poor choice for the sandy conditions in this bike leg. They really struggled in the soft sand drifts accross the road, and lost a lot of time. We thought long and hard about this before the race, and after some team discussions went out and bought some 'fat' tyres specially - looks like it has paid off now! All teams had to push in places, but for some of it our fat tyres and low pressure (we were running only 20psi) allowed us to keep peddling through where Vibram had to dismount. We finished more than 15 minutes ahead, which puts us 22 minutes up overall going into the last day."
It has been a long hot ride, with ADCO and probably many other teams running out of water along the way. Stu said he drank 3L in one go at the finish of the ride! And they are not quite through it yet, the teams are now on a bus for 3.5 hours before they get a chance to get some real food - Stu mentioned they are down to a few meusli bars left over from their race food! He was hoping to sweet talk the bus driver into stopping at a service station, where it will be a race to the food shelves as over 100 hungry and thirsty racers will proably buy everything in sight!
ADCO NZ's Gordon Blythen (left) and Nathan Peterson (right) in the Rub Al Khali desert. Note the nifty white gaiters that Fleur made up for the team!
Teams will then set up camp for their final night in the shadow of Jabel Hafeet, the mountain in the desert. It will be a very early wake up as teams prepare for the 5:30am start in the dark for a short'night orienteering' section till dawn at 6:30am, then teams continue on foot up some canyon rope sections to the summit. There is then an 'untimed' mountain bike ride down the mountain (to prevent too much 'breakneck' speed) before the final bike and run stage around the city Al Ain to the finish line.
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