Ho Chi Minh City, the final destination

After two weeks of suffering, laughing, crying, enjoying, riding, sightseeing, working, relaxing and lots of sweating, we have finally arrived at our final destination: Ho Chi Minh city. The last few days weren't that straightforward though. We were not merely chasing stage wins, we were in the mix for the prestigious overall classifications, both individual and teams.

On our (well deserved) restday we had a chance to reflect on what we had achieved so far and what was still to come. After the restday, the race headed inland with another mountain stage that would probably be crucial for the overall classification. We still had a few guys in the mix, with mountain goats Bob and Martijn as well as David in pole position, but how to best make use of that? We would not need to attack, but ‘only’ to follow.

For me it was quite different. The 10^th stage had two distinct climbs but no descents as each of the two climbs led to a plateau. This would be a little problematic as I’m not the best climber but can usually make up for it by using gravity to compensate on the way down. No chance for that tactic this time, so I would need to anticipate. Right from the start however, two teams clearly had a plan to set up their GC guy by taking control and set a solid pace which would make attacking suicidal. So that’s what I did. At first I tried alone and later with teammate Bart and one other rider where we hoped to start the first climb with a nice lead. It was not really suicide as we didn’t push too hard, but we got caught nonetheless. Then I thought it would be a good idea to make myself useful by leading our guys up the start of the climb. That’s where I got really suicidal, as I pushed wattages I could not sustain and soon after got spat out of the back of the peloton. As I worked myself up the climb at my own pace I didn’t really collapsed and figured the legs weren’t that bad. Over the top of the first climb I could easily regain speed and thought I would be able to make a decent chase as I picked up two other dropped riders.

Time limit for this stage would be 10 percent, equal to roughly 27 minutes, so I wasn’t too worried yet. 10 kilometers later however, I was told by race officials that I was supposedly too far behind and had to stop. As I did not agree with this point of action I tried pushing on, until they parked a motorbike in front of me and I had no other choice then to climb into the bus. I later checked time gaps and at that point I was 5 minutes behind the lead group and only 2,5 minutes behind the peloton. Apparently the organizers weren’t willing to let a motorbike escort us trough traffic and decided I was not worth the effort. It left me quite angry. At the finish, my mood got a little better as I heard that David, Bob and Martijn D were all present in the first group so we still had the yellow jersey.

Luckily, as this was not a UCI race, everyone was allowed 1 DNF (awarding you with the time of the last finisher on the stage and adding 10 minutes), so I could use stage 11 to get my revenge. With another 1200 altimeters over 180km it would not really be a course suited to my capabilities. What did help was the lower temperature of around 20 degrees. After surviving the first small climb, I did manage to get myself into the break of the day on the following long descent. As a way of protecting the yellow jersey I was able to sit on and save my energy for the climbs to come. Now I was basically acting like the average Vietnamese rider: being in the break, but not riding. Luckily for me it was still a long way to go so nobody attacked and I was able to ride within my limits. With the last 28 kilometers going mostly downhill and the break steadily being brought back by the peloton, I started thinking of ways make the most of this situation. 

I knew attacks would come in the last part of the race, but had to keep my nerves under control. As I followed some attacks at first, I put in a good dig with 3 kilometer to go. With a Vietnamese rider sitting directly on my wheel I pushed on. We quickly got a gap of about 100 meters and my friend-for-the-moment took a turn, believing that we could actually make it to the line. At that point we entered the city, and the organizers apparently had difficulty to keep the roads free of traffic. All of a sudden, near the flame rouge, two mopeds decided to cross the road to take a left turn, right in front of us. As my fellow escapee managed to squeeze through the gap between the two mopeds I knew I was going to be in trouble. With nowhere to go I tried to make sure my bike wouldn’t hit anything as going down with 57 km/h was not a favorable option. This meant that I took a hit on my right arm, probably from the mirror of the second moped. No time to look back. Luckily I managed to stay upright, albeit with the loss of some speed. The Vietnamese noticed and started sprinting to go solo. I got back on his wheel and took the lead to start the sprint from 200 meters out. With the first few pedal strokes I knew it would be good enough, so I had some time to celebrate before crossing the line. Revenge felt sweet.

It did make itself felt the day after. The 50k criterium on a hot-dog circuit with a small hill would never be easy, but I really felt the efforts of the day before and just couldn’t find my rhythm. Again, damage control for the yellow jersey was priority, so that’s what we did. In the end we got some help from the Koreans to bring everything back together for a bunch sprint, in which we couldn’t really play a significant role.

              

Stage 13, Ho Chi Minh was getting closer, but still that far away. On paper, this stage looked to be mostly downhill so essentially far from overly difficult. Still, there was over 1600 meters of altitude gain. Or more, depending on whose Garmin/Strava you would like to believe. The invisible altimeters came from the constantly rolling terrain. Not a single meter was flat, but most of the rollers were not more than a few hundred meters long. We knew there were going to be some do or die attacks in this stage, as it would be the best and last real chance of upsetting the general classification. About 30 minutes into the race, the strongest rider of the bunch launched a scorching attack on one of the rolling hills. Anyone with a little understanding of cycling could see that this was the deciding move, so naturally all riders wanted to go with him. They couldn’t, except for 3 brave souls, one of which was our own Martijn D. With four riders up the road and still 160km to go, we set out to control the bunch and manage the gap to the break. This worked out quite well and although riding the front was not easy, it was at least a lot less stressful then the constant jumping and attacking that normally happens on terrain like this. 

As the other teams were happy to let us do the work, we were happy to be in control. That was until the unfortunate puncture of Martijn, which saw him drop back to the peloton. At the same time we saw the time gap increase so we decided to up our pace a little bit as well with the intention of slowly reeling in the break without catching them too soon.  This plan went all pear-shaped as the break suddenly sat up with us catching them right at the bottom of a nice long hill, which subsequently sparked a flurry of attacks. Now we again switched from chasing duty to ‘following dozens of attacks per minute’-duty. Luckily the whole peloton had felt the invisible altimeters during the day as well, so in the end we got everything back under control and ended the stage with a bunch sprint in which our tired legs could not bring us any good result. Main goal still achieved: another day closer to HCM and still David in yellow.

One more day to go and it would not be the typical “Tour-de-France-rides-into-Paris-while-celebrating-and-drinking-champagne” kind of stage. We were still in pole-position for both the individual and team general classifications, but had many riders and teams breathing down our necks. After a very fast and hectic first 30 minutes, I found myself in a lead group of 13 riders without a threat to our David’s yellow jersey. It was a perfect break, except for the three duo’s of the Indonesian, Philipinne and Vietnamese Loc Troi teams. With them being at 29 seconds, 1:01 minute and 3:15 minutes respectively, we might not be able to hold onto our team classification lead. Therefore I tried to disrupt the chase as much as possible, acting like the typical Vietnamese rider again. 

Despite all my efforts, the different teams found each other in the common goal of kicking us off the team GC podium and stretched out the advantage over the peloton to almost 4 minutes. As I figured my teammates in the peloton were chasing the best they could, I upped the ante and tried to dislodge the collaboration with some attacks in the final 10 kilometers. Unfortunately it only broke the pace for a short while and didn’t do any good to my legs either. When we entered the final straight line to the finish, I had nothing left in the tank anymore to get myself in the mix for the stage win. As the peloton crossed the line 3 minutes later, I could see David celebrating his win, putting a smile on my exhausted face again. Mission accomplished!