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.

Restdays need to be earned

Although September would be considered part of the rain season in Vietnam, we haven’t seen any during the race in the past few days. You could argue if that’s a good thing, because the sun and high temperatures in combination with high humidity might just be our worst enemy.

Stages one, two & three. You don't get anything for free.

On September 2^nd, the National Day of Vietnam, we found ourselves in the city centre of Hanoi, lining up at the start of the first stage of VTV Cup Ton Hoa Sen. Today’s stage was a 1,7 km loop around the popular tourist attraction Hoan Kiem lake, which we had to circle for 30 laps. We knew it would be a fast one, probably just like two years ago. The big difference now is that everybody’s still fresh and that showed with the fact that the race ended up in a bunch sprint and an average speed of 48 km/h. 

Holiday race

Recently I got told, yet again, that this blog has been silent for quite some time. I have to say that starting a new entry with these words feels kind of familiar. As putting down some words, and subsequently combining them into a story worth reading, is only a minor hobby of mine it suffices to say that I’ve found lots of other ways to spend my daily non-sleeping hours. It’s been almost a year since I started working 40 hours a week, which is not spectacular by any means, but sort of life-changing nonetheless. Or so I thought.