Day Three - Lakeside Beach Camp to Farm Camp

Distance: 130.35km
Ride time: 5:23
Climb: 1299m

Best thing: Strong in the big ring, chasing the other rider.
Worst thing: Only strong for a while.

So after a pretty good night at the beach camp, I was up for a slow
recovery day. Gizzy was as well, so we set out for a pretty easy ride.
After the rain over night, all the loose sand was nice and grippy, so
the ride back up to the paved road was nice and easy.

Soon after we got to the top, one of the other riders caught up, then
went by on a downhill. On the very next uphill, we went by them. After
this, it didn't really seem like they did a lot of pulling. I'm not
really up on riding etiquette, but I think that starting after other
riders, then riding their draft without pulling is bad form. It didn't
really bother me, because I was out for an easy day, and it isn't much
harder to ride with someone in your draft than not.

About halfway to lunch, Stuart and a bunch of other riders also caught
us up. Lunch was pretty good, big rolls with cheese (a special kind of
processed cheese that they have here), guacamole and tomatoes. Only
down side was that it was being rationed out so that slower riders got
their fair share as well. Seems kind of counter-intuitive to me. It
would be good encouragement for there to be no food for riders who got
in late. That isn't really how TDA rolls though.

That reminds me, we got our new truck at the beach camp. It isn't
fully configured - just a holdover until the truck waiting in Gondor
gets its new engine. There are two problems with that: firstly, it is
the lunch truck (because all the fridge and other dinner kit is still
in the old lunch truck, now dinner truck); and secondly, there is less
space on the trucks for bikes.

My idea for fixing the problem is that people without a real injury
that want to ride the trucks have to buy their seats at an auction.
Any money raised can go into a pool for buying those that ride all day
a coke or something. Some riders think that this would be a good idea.
Mainly the EFIers and people that have had the misfortune to be really
sick on the truck and had to put up with the whining of the
sandbaggers. This isn't something that TDA is really keen on enforcing
though, so it will just have to remain a good (if totally harsh) idea.

Anyway, back to the boring minutia of riding. After lunch, we knocked
straight into a pretty steep climb. About halfway up, I wanted to
change from my granny into my big ring so that I could stomp it out.
The shifter felt a bit stiff, and the chain wasn't climbing up. So I
gave it a bit of welly to get it to go. Twang! I pulled the cable out
of the front derailleur, so I had to granny up the rest of the climb.
When I got to the top, and found a quiet place, I bodged it back
together so that I could put it in the big ring. I didn't really have
any faith in my repair, so I kept it in the big ring for the rest of
the climbs.

Gizzy and Stuart turned around to come and find me. The other rider
that joined us in the morning didn't turn around though. Stuart and I
thought about it for a while, and realised that if the other,
draft-happy, pull-shy rider kept going, they would win the stage. This
didn't sit to well with us, so we kicked it up a notch and started to
chase them down.

We were fanging along, but after about 20km or so, I was starting to
feel the lack of a granny. I sat on Stuart's wheel for a while, but it
seemed pretty slack to be drafting someone while chasing down a
condemned drafter. So Stuart set off after the rider and I sat back to
finish off the ride. Stuart caught the rider before the finish, but
because of the way the timing system works, we don't know who the
stage winner was yet.

Other big news of the day: fresh pineapple for sale by the camp. Even
better than cold cokes.

The rider that fell heavily in my crash yesterday couldn't rider
today. They went off to get x-rays for their bunged up wrist. So
straight away, they lost their EFI status. The x-ray came back clear,
but they are going to have to spend 7-10 days off the bike. Their race
position is definitely going to suffer because of it.

One of the other guys pointed out that I don't blog about anything
useful for people that might do the tour in the future, so from now on
I will give you an awesome camping tip from my new found wealth of
knowledge.

Dan's Camping Tip from Someone that Knows Nothing of Camping: Always
put the fly on your tent. This means that no-one will have to rip
their eyes out if they see you baby wiping your saddle sores. It also
means that when it rains, you don't have to get up at midnight to put
your fly on. The one exception to this is after riding through Dinder
National Park - then all bets are off.

All bets being off reminds me of chairs around camp. We all sit of
folding metal and canvas stools. At first, it was a bit of a faux pas
to ask for your chair back. As time has gone on, chair taking has
become more and more of a no-no, and calling people out on it has
become more acceptable.

Some riders and also the sectional riders haven't caught on to this yet.

Two nights ago, some guy stole Rick's chair. Rick came back and gave
us all a look to let us know what was going on. As he went past, I
said "Hey Rick, isn't that your dishkit under that chair?" It was kind
of pinned by the chair leg, so he said "Oh yeah. Hey Adam, do you mind
staining up for a second so that I can get it?" Adam stood up, and
when he did Rick said "While your up, you can get out of my seat."
Classic.

It wouldn't have been so funny, if Adam hadn't been called out twice
already that night. The seconds line for food also has a bunch of
rules. Well, some of like to think it does. One: you can't get seconds
until open kitchen is called. This is to make sure that every rider
and staff member gets some food - fair enough. Two: you can't line up
for food if you still have food in your bowl - otherwise, you'd just
go straight to the front of the seconds line.

That night, like every night really, Stuart finished first so he was
at the front of the seconds line waiting for open kitchen. Apparently,
Adam walked up, still eating his roast potato off his fork and walked
straight up to the chicken pot to help himself. Stuart whistled at him
like he was an Ethiopian kid to get him into the line. Then he told
him that he was pretty uncouth to line up for seconds while he was
still eating his firsts. The way Adam figures it, it isn't uncouth -
it is "strategy". I don't really need to point out that Adam also
thinks drafting and shirking on pulls is a strategy Different shirker
from today though. After Stuart schooled him a bit, I finished and
went to line up. I saw Adam in second place in the line, still eating
his potato. I just stood in front of him and told him that you could
only have clean plates in the seconds line. Somedays, a fool just has
to be taught.