Riders at the Tour de France may be battling through the heat at the moment, but another weather extreme is currently playing out at the Tour of Magnificent Qinghai which hasn't exactly basking in summer warmth the last two days.
Already on stage 5 the posts on social media from the 2.Pro race were filled with grey skies, rain, sleet and riders – even those that had come from the middle of the Australian winter – shivering in the icy conditions and knocking their hands to try and get the feeling back into numb fingers. So tough were the conditions that around thirty riders either abandoned or didn't make the time cut on the fifth stage.
The race outlined on Instagram that it had been a "brutal day on the Tibetan Plateau. The riders battled freezing temperatures and relentless rain from start to finish, making it a true test of resilience".
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And while riders, organisers and spectators alike may have been enjoying drying and thawing out after Wednesday's stage, it turns out that there was another test of the resilience ahead on Thursday.
Despite it being the middle of summer in China, the conditions certainly didn't get any better for the 233km stage 6 as the race quickly climbed to over 3,500m on the category 2 Sangchi Tunbao and then went even higher on the Nanshan Luohe mountain pass.
At that point Cyrus Monk (FINX-SCOM-Hengxiang Cycling) – who had been chasing the break all week – Edward Cruz (Bardiani CSF 7 Saber), Diego Bracalente (MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort), Alexander Konychev (China Anta-Mentech Cycling) and Jonas Rapp (FINX-SCOM-Hengxiang Cycling) had broken away out front, but that launch quickly fizzled when at the top of the pass, and with just 40km of the stage done the race was called off.
There are now two stages of the eight-stage race left and, given fewer than a hundred of the 150 starters remain, very few of the teams have a full squad left in the race. At the end of stage 5, Jonathan Caicedo (Wheeltop Rotor Chengdu) was leading the GC, and has a near full squad to help him defend his lead, with Jan Castellon (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) the closest at nine seconds back.
The remaining stages will deliver opportunities to try and chip away at the gap, if the weather doesn't spoil them again, as the 130km stage 7 contains the hors catégorie Tongbaoshan climb which will take riders up to 4,000m, and stage 8 climbs the category 3 Riyueshan Mountain Pass topping out at 3,470m.
