Nicolas Lau holds on to his lead from Clementz and Vouilloz.

Day 3

The race continues !

The approach to stage one today see’s competitors become more personally acquainted with their bikes .Yes, It’s the first major carry of the Mavic® Trans – Provence. A 500 metre carry or push depending upon your persuasion leads you to a col in the mountains and the first Special Stage of the day.

An equally fierce descent balances out the climb to the summit and fires the riders on to the valley floor and a longer liaison stage than in previous year, with a long road climb to the feed station.

It’s very easy to overuse the word brutal when writing a Mavic® Trans-Provence press release, but it’s near enough unanimous as far as we can tell – 9 out of 10 riders that had enough lung capacity to answer simple questions at the top of a hill reckon the climb to todays Special Stage 2 is brutal !

However – the whooping and shouting at the bottom of the new Special Stage seems to suggest that the all the hard work uphill was well worthwhile.

Another long road section followed by the last fire road climb of the day leads as always to todays the final Special Stage . Fast traversing singletrack with plenty of exposure across desert like hillside drops riders into a wooded valley bottom and a final flat out pedal across undulating (some of it very steeply undulating) singletrack .

No changes in positon for the top riders today but there’s plenty more riding and racing ahead.

Full results www.trans-provence.com/results2012/overall/after_day3.html