Kristof Allegaert of Belgium is leading Great Britain’s Mike Hall in the Indian Pacific Wheel Race – nicknamed the IndiPac – but the Briton has been struggling first with numbness in his left leg and now with mental fatigue, meaning he is having to take longer stops than would be ideal.
The men, both among the world’s outstanding ultracyclists, are more than a third of the way through crossing Australia from east to west in the coast-to-coast event which began on Sunday.
But Hall, who by his own admission on Twitter has been struggling due to a variety of issues admitted on Twitter earlier today that mentally, he’s not quite in the race – despite still occupying second place.
> Bike check: Mike Hall’s Kinesis GF Ti ready for Indian Pacific Wheel Race
He also founded the Transcontinental Race, which will be in its fifth edition this year, with three of the previous four editions including the inaugural event in 2013 won by Allegaert.
Currently, the Belgian has covered some 1,978 kilometres, while second-placed Hall’s distance stands at 1,907 kilometres as both head across South Australia towards Adelaide.
The route of the 5,300-kilometre coast-to-coast race from Fremantle in Western Australia to the Sydney Opera House in New South Wales, has been planned by organisers to showcase four very different kinds of terrain.
Allegaert and Hall have the desert section, including the vast Nullarbor Plain, behind them, and are currently in the rolling hills of South Australia’s wine country.
Still to come, once the head into Victoria, is the Great Ocean Road then the Australian Alps which forms the border between that state, the ACT, and New South Wales.
In all, 70 riders left the Western Australian coast to begin their unsupported journey across the continent, and all but six are still going.
You can follow their progress on the race’s website – if you haven’t tried keeping tabs on a long-distance bike race in that way before, we should warn you that the activity, known to practitioners as ‘dot watching’ can be strangely compelling.
Here are the Day 4 highlights.
As with Rolex's,I assume most in the wild are fakes. Even this genuine one look fake and a bit tacky. What's the appeal?
Wouldn't it be BMC who "copied" dropper seastays? ...
Damn that bike looks fugly
In my sample size of one , I get 'given' much more room riding my mountain bike by passing drivers. On my road bike I get a lot of close passes...
3 hours ? Mine is good for at least 6 hours. Even the old just radar sensor could cope with that and the light + radar is meant to have a 10 hour...
I know! I've mentioned this before on here but in firearms training one of the first thing's one's told is that if you make an error that could...
Bike jackings -was rife in South Africa when i left and probably still is. Sad state of affairs, I hope the rider heals up quickly and suffers no...
What about Miguel Indurain?
Wow! I dream of getting 6,000km out of a chain! My bike has only just cleared 5,000km...
Maybe we need to take a note out of the drivists playbook and label the lack of secure bike storage as discriminatory against the disabled