I woke in Kham Dúc to a rainy sky and cool conditions. Not ideal for riding but a welcome change from the heat of yesterday, max Temp 37.5C.
I am procrastinating about setting out. The first 50 km are almost entirely uphill with 2 climbs topping out around 1000 metres. I’m currently at about 400 meters but am going to lose quite a bit of that straight away. The elevation profile for today has over 2300 meters of climbing and is 170 km long. The bright side is that once over the second big Mountain, it’s pretty much downhill to Kon Tùm. (With undulations 😏).
At a place called Cåu Dák Chè somewhere up the mountain and after almost 1000 metres of climbing I stopped for some much needed refreshments. I was greeted by two Canadian guys on motorbikes one whom said “I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you must be out of your fucking mind”. I was beginning to think he had a point. Parts of this climb have been brutal, long sections of 10%+ and I’m not ashamed to admit, at some points I had to walk up.
The weather has not been kind for photos, intermittent drizzle interspersed with light rain. It also doesn’t help that I’ve been riding in the clouds this morning.
At further past my lunch stop I fanally crested the first of the two peaks I had to climb today and was greater with clearing blue skies and 10% decline signs 😃🎉🎉 About halfway down this first descent I passed a Semi that had rolled on the was down the hill. It was pretty recent and was left sprawling over the Armco, the drivers side completely crushed. It was quite sobering and my initial exhilaration was tempered somewhat. Another kilometre or so further down was the shell of a burnt out bus that had been coming up the hill.
The transition across to the next climb was short lived and it seemed as the roads builders had been in even more of a hurry to get to the top than they had been on the previous one. 1336 meters of elevation gain and 52.7 km later I crested the second mountain, this had taken me about 4 hours at an average of just 13 kph. 170 km for the day now looked very optimistic.
The tailwind coupled with the overall descent helped, but the climbing had taken its toll, every little pinch now felt like mountain and at 110 km as I rolled into Ngoc Hoi I decided I’d had enough. It was almost 4pm and the brooding sky did not bode well for further riding.
I’ll just leave the stats here.
Andrew & The Dr. 