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Stage 5 - October 22: Robinson River - Wollogorang, 157 km
By Christi Valentine - Anderson
"A convection oven full of bull dust"
Just one more crossing of the croc-infested Robinson River in the first 200 meters of the stage. So let's hope all were carrying lube as the freshly serviced bikes were washed free of their environmentally friendly oils. It was a hard start for the peloton but that did not hamper the big American, Lars Erik Johnson, who has officially recovered from his first four days in this sweltering land. Johnson fully committed to helping his Dream Team mate Elli by pushing the pace of the group containing Hansen and Elli in order to drop as many as possible and force Hansen to do some work.
By the second feed at 60km, all was going to plan and Elli was clearly taking it easy sitting with Hansen and Hotter. Johnson had quote, "wiggled" Adam Hansen out into the 20kph headwind a few times and dropped all of Hansen's team-mates easily. Lars commented that he felt like he was riding his bike through a child's sand box with a hair dryer the size of a wind tunnel blowing in his face.
Johnson has clearly recovered and was able to put down some pain before he had to relax a bit and get his body temperature back to a safe level. It was 44 degrees in the shade on this 150km day. When after the race, Elli commented that it wasn't so hot today, Johnson nearly choked on the XXXX beer he was savoring. Johnson had just compared the Australian outback to a convection oven full of bull dust.
The unbelievably tough Belgian Perry Moerman rode the entire stage out of the saddle as he no longer can handle contact with the same. Moerman rolled into the finish still standing and has, in effect, jogged 150km today on top of his pedals. Now the bottoms of his feet join the list of casualties for Moerman, who is now standing ninth on general classification.
Darren O'Grady, the Dream Team's mechanic, rode to the 100km point and stepped off the bike as his was burning up in the mid-stage sun. O'Grady rode stage four as well. Tomorrow, however, Jurgen Van de Walle will rejoin the race, even though his results will not count in the overall.
