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.
So one should only take "sensible, self-protective safety measures" if they are in an official document?...
Toasty Toe Tips. Aliteration chance somewhat missed.
As I said above wide tyres plus fork smooth it even more.
I just want us all to eat a kitkat and let that name sink in.. Tim Torn Teutenberg.......
We stopped doing those studies because they didn't work - they didn't show our treatments were working and we know they do, so the tests are wrong!...
"Nobody ever swam across the river full of alligators, so we installed a bridge. Since opening the bridge, three people have tripped when walking...
I work for a company that is starting to use similar software. The issue is that before this someone had to be looking at the screen, and...
Wonder how long it was stationary before the wheels had gone and it was on bricks? I notice they took the headlights as well - people must be...
Interesting about also taking on Wildcat Gear as I've found that to be both functional and durable as a customer. You could say they've gone from...
In the Netherlands, their streets with the equivalent 30kph limit don't need or have sparated cycle lanes. And they are designed so that they...