107.6km – 1977m up – 2756m down – 5101kcal – 9:18h

What a day! It was one of the toughest and most difficult so far to ride. It was raining all day and we had 56% off road today. The first 46km on pavement meant great fun for everyone. You can see it in our faces enjoying the down hills, although the rain drops hammering on us.
  

The pain started on the 2nd half, when we had to leave pavement and went onto rough gravel. The stones were so big and slippery that it was hard to control our wheels, even on slow climbs. That is where I had my first accident. My front wheel slipped on a rock, pushing me to the ground. Nothing happened, have others enjoy the incident, get back on the bike and simply ride on.  The expressions on the the faces talk for themselves, how everyone loved the rocky climbs. Eventually on the top of the climb we saw some sunshine, however not in the direction we were supposed to go, but happy to make it that far and looking forward to the long downhill that should bring up effortless  to lunch. However how enjoyable a downhill can be, it holds some danger with it … I didn’t enjoy all the fast, rattling downhill as much as Michiel does. On a last steep downhill stretch, just a few kilometers from lunch I decided to become an ‘action hero’ and did a straight somersault dive over my handle bar. Bringing me to the ground, shaken and breathless. Fortunately, besides cuts and bruises, nothing severely  happened. All bones in one piece. At lunch, Sarah, our tour doctor, patched me up again to make me finish the day and preparing for another long one.