Blog Day 24 – Lien Son to Lam Ha - climbs, chains and friendly ladies!

And we're off - on the very last of our three Evil Bitch Days. It was a bit of a grueling start, as a 5.30am start to beat the heat and the climbs meant that we had to get up before the sun had risen. But after a few banh mi trungs, we were all off. 

Laurel’s fiancé Adam caused the first waves of the day, with their bike ‘Doris’ (no comment) not starting due to a dodgy petrol purchase – and he, along with Doris, were soon keeping Mr Cuong company in his van.

The first Grade 3 climb was soon outside Lam Ha, but everybody managed it and there were some nice downhills on the other side (with a few hammock stops en route) before we hit a massive lake with a floating village below the bridge.

There were two Grade 2s starting at 52km and 74km. The first 2 started off relatively easily but then went pretty much straight up from 62km to 72km mark. The second 2 was from I think 84km to 92km, and was followed by a long, steep downhill into Lam Ha, where we had a bit of hotel woes, but they were soon sorted out, especially after a number of us spent the night at Lam Ha’s infamous Munich Beer Hall.

All in all Day 24 turned out to be challenging but doable.

Climbs - The last of our big climb days. While the climbs were pretty serious, the whole team seemed to manage, helped by the cloud cover (and the rain which affected some) which kept the heat down.

Chains - poor Kate Grigg had more chain woes (and on a particularly steep climb) but was soon back up and at 'em.

Finally, friendly ladies - Laurel Winter, Tony Martin & I were all propositioned by the local 'friendly lady'. But you can probably imagine my reaction when she suddenly got off one 'customer's' motorbike and started making suggestions. This, mind, was while I was taking a water break (drink not pee) halfway up the first steep climb in deep jungle. Needless to say, I cycled the second half of that climb with even more speed. She was one scary lady (sorry no pic). H2H team 2017 – consider yourself warned!

Davide Greene