Novatny and Hynek take queen stage and solidify overall lead

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Stage 2 may have been the longest, but stage 5 at the 2011 Brasil Ride may well go down as the toughest. The combination of several testing singletrack sections (up and down), a death-march hike-a-bike, and temperatures that hovered around the 100-degree mark all combined to make this a day best forgotten.

But it was an untimely flat tire that caused the biggest upset Thursday at the front of field. The mishap happened during the long flat section the preceded the day’s final, punishing climb, a 10km paved grind with sustained pitches upwards of 13 percent.

After an initial selection that included Kristian Hynek and Robert Novatny (Future Cycling-Sweep), Luis Pinto and Alejandro Lopez (Team Spano-Luso), and the race’s other Czech duo Tomas Vokrouhlik and Martin Horak (BMC), Pinto and Lopez flatted out of the group. That opened the door for Novatny and Hynek, who had little trouble shedding their countrymen on the aforementioned final climb, taking the stage win and expanding their overall GC lead to 5:29.

“I think it was by far the worst so far,” said Hynek, who won this race a year ago with Novatny, albeit in far different conditions. “Last year it was rain, rain, rain. Now it is too much sun. It’s very difficult either way.”

The mixed dup competition all but ended Thursday, as Annabella Stropparo crashed on her face and broke one of her shifters. That allowed German Ivonne Kraft and Brazilian partner Mateus Ferraz (Brasil Soul-RC Bikes) to expand their lead above the one hour mark.

“The trail today was too technical for me,” said Stropparo, who had a decent sized black eye at dinner, as she sat with race partner and husband Piero Pellegrini (Annapiero). “But my crash was a stupid crash, not in the technical, because I was walking the technical. It was at one of the fast open places. My wheel slipped out. I broke the grip shift too and was basically on singlespeed the rest of the day.”

The top of the women’s standing remained unchanged, as Adriana Nascimento and Sabrina Gobbo (Ladies Brasil Soul-RC Bikes) took their fifth stage win in a row in the three-team field. The lead in the overall is nearly two hours.

“We take it easy yesterday, because we knew today would be a very hard day,” said Gobbo. “Tomorrow will be very hard, too.”

Indeed, next up it’s back to the stage 1 and 2 start town Mucuge by way of an 128km route with 1716 meters of climbing. While not the killer day that was stage 2’s 145km slog, it’s going to be a bruiser. The weather forecast remains unchanged: hot, hot, hot. Start time in 6:30 a.m. Time cut is 11 hours and many riders will need all 11 to get to the line.