After the humble pie of day 1 we were ready for some redemption. Stage 2 was intimidating though, the Queen Stage and the highest point in the race, along with the biggest climb (6.9 miles/3100 feet) of the week, it seems like a little less than yesterday, but this was all up and just got steeper and steeper. The climb also came late in the stage, after the mess of stage 1 I had no idea what to expect from myself. Stage 2 was also the longest stage of the week and had us finishing over in Davos. There was another decent climb early in the stage that was like a mini version of the latter climb. It ended with a little hike as well.
Wes was ready and basically, we set the game plan to be a lot more conservative on the day. The profile was intimidating, that monster climb was near the end and if you got to that in shambles you were sure to bleed a ton of time. We had been bumped back to start group C which gave us a slower start, but also meant we got mired in a bit more traffic in the early single track, which was good stuff even with some of the slower speeds.
A lot of the day came and went in anticipation of the big one. The early climb of note felt pretty good, which was a Confidence inspiring feeling. We also got to ride a good bit with some of the other Brevard boys, Brian and Josh, which was a lot of fun and really helped the miles tick by.
The big climb started as forestry/gravel and just kept getting steeper, then opened into this drainage of sorts with a river basically water-falling down next to us. It was an amazing setting. Except the more we went up the steeper it got and to the point where some of the pitches took some concentration to keep the pedals turning over and not falling.
Once we finally made it 3/4 of the way up to the aid station that’s where it got spicy and the singletrack started (also a lot of hiking). Looking up was disheartening to see how high up people were. This is where we said goodbye to Brian and Josh for the day as my old man bladder forced me to take a pee brake.
The hiking was what it was, in our part of the race most had to hike here. Once we got over the top the downhill was super fun, chunky, big, pretty good lines of sight. We had to make a few passes in some interesting spots till we got caught behind a couple teams who didn’t want to move.
Once we got past them it was a long and fast downhill run with one little stinger before the finish.
The legs felt good, body felt good. All and all, it was a pretty good bounce back day. Nothing crazy but a good solid day to help me see, alright maybe you can get this done. We had finished 7th in the Class and 61st overall I think, which was a big move up from the previous day. Things were Looking up
