Trans Madeira day 3

Today we woke up and the sun was out and it was perfect weather for riding. Yesterday´s rain made the tracks prefect, kept the dust down, it was grippy and more predictable to ride.

We started day 3 at Pico Arieiro which is the second highest mountain in Madeira.  First stage was long and high speed. I started my day with a solid run on stage one, but then on stage two I made a silly mistake due to being tired and pushing too hard. I manage to get up quick regrouped myself and had good second half of the run.

After two stages we had a massive adventure liaison and climbed over 1000m vertical and had to go through two big tunnels with torch´s strapped to our bikes. At the end of the massive liaison we got rewarded to do one of best stages in the world! I loved it, loamy fresh stuff, really good grip and I manage to get into a zone where riding was just really enjoyable and effortless. Last stage of the day was really steep old dh track and it was a proper test to your body after 7 hours on the bike.

It is nice to know that we are past the halfway point now and there are only two more days left. My body is starting to feel the lack of sleeping and tiredness now, but I gotta keep my head strait and focus on the last couple of days, ones this is over I can rest. I am still sitting in 3rd overall. The race leader going into today had some issues and was dropped to 2nd so that even out the time gaps and it is tight now so anything can happen.