Week 2 – Sunday update

There is a palpable sense that the worst is over for the participants of the Betfair LifeCycle Challenge as although there are still some 400km to go, the hardest rides are over. The journey from Ilirska Bistrica in Slovenia to Zadar in Croatia on Sunday took them an impressive 260km, up 3.5 km and down 4km to sea-level, with an awe-inspiring ride along the coastline – but the challenge of covering that distance and the relentless hills was exacerbated by temperatures in the high 40s. The shimmering heat off the tarmac brought many of the cyclists to the point of heatstroke, with the back-up team stopping every 10km or so (in addition to the four official checkpoints) to refill their water – and pour it over their heads to cool them down. The day also brought out all that represents the best of the LifeCycle spirit. A group of four cyclists all stopped when one of them got a puncture; another actually put his hand onto a fellow cyslist’s back and pushed her up a hill as she was finding it so hard and so painful that she was at breaking point. The physiotherapists were a constant triage unit, strapping up muscles and tendons, doling out bandages, anti-inflammatories and energy tablets. The back-up team did all they could to encourage the cyclists and distract them from the pain in their knees and legs, buying ice-cream, fooling around with the LifeCycle signs and generally keeping morale up even when the cyclists were near dropping point, managing to make them laugh even on the steepest hills. As usual with the Challenge, there is always something that goes wrong and on Sunday, the accommodation – staked out, booked and confirmed months before – was locked up and it took two hours to track down the person with the key, meaning that the kitchen team could not start unloading till around 7 p.m. – but still managed to churn out a three-course meal for the cyclists by the time they got to base at around 8.45 p.m.