Day 3: Ok, so some kind farmer was good enough to refuse the Epic over his land and more importantly, his mountain. So Dr. Evil's plans of sending us over 2200m elevation in 115km had to be changed. Apparently this was announced at the race briefing. Oh, so that is what those things are for! But this change to the route did not mean that it was any easier, in fact we apparently still climbed the same total elevation of over 2200m but just spaced out over the new longer stage distance of 120km.
After yesterday's exceptionally dusty start, me and partner Gazman, had the novel idea of using the offical race silk scarf as masks. There might be a few more following our lead if the many 'hey, brilliant idea!' comments are anything to go by.

After the usual hectic start we found ourselves a little further up the field than the previous days (it pays to arrive for the start early!) and we rode strongly for about 80km with few teams passing us, but we passed quite a number.
The Gazman then started to suffer from an aching back and the final major climb, 40km out, was really tough for him. Hats off to him for pushing through it. We got caught and passed by a couple of teams at this point but after the final water station, we put our heads down and charged on over the final 30km.
But Dr Evil had a little sting in the tail for us, again! And with a mere 7km to go, we hit 5km stretch of deep beach sand! The physical and mental effort to get through the patch took it's toll on the Gazman and he finished absolutely smashed.
'That was the hardest day ever in the saddle for me,'said the Gazman whilst hunched over the water table in the finish tent.
And we get to do it all again tomorrow!