As I pull down my tent I feel more like I am flying a kite. The wind hasn’t stopped blowing all night. My tent doesn’t want to cooperate but at last I manage to get it into it’s bag. I pack up my gear and cram it into my rucksack. Suddenly I realize I don’t have the key to my bike which I have locked to someone elses bike and I have to go back and unpack my rucksack, pull out my tent, battle once again with my tent in the wind before I find my key lying loosely down the bottom. Half an hour later I am packed up and munching once again on tastey porridge for breakfast.

It’s a 135km and everyone is wishing the wind would blow in the other direction. Riders p

ull into the lunch stop and everyone agrees that spam has never tasted so good. There’s a few smiles on faces, but most are looking fatigued, sore, and very much over this headwind. At lunch a few decide they have had enough – it’s all too much - and take the bus into camp. Many press on, plowing their way through the wind. I ride sweep.

At the end of the day it’s not the racers first into camp that win my

respect but the ones that are just immediately in front of me, struggling the most, but still pressing on. These guys are the ones that are out battling the longest, spending the most time in their saddles, suffering. I watch as the sun disappears over the mountain and wonder if we will make it to camp before we lose too much more light. But suddenly behind the dunes I spy a colourful tent city and I know we have made it. And I know there is some degree of satisfaction of the last two riders that come into camp as they have conquered a tough day – spending most of the final hour doubting their ability to make it.

Riders are looking tired when I arrive at our third desert camp. At the rider meeting however, the promise of showers, internet and a town for tomorrow nights camp turns everyone’s faces into smiles. The simple things once taken for granted back at home are a luxury on tour.