Stage 5: “My hardest and best day on a mountain bike”

Stage 5, the Queen Stage of the 2016 Crocodile Trophy – 131km and “only” 1900vm.

Martin was in his element he said, despite the early hills. He thought he could not hang onto his category, but he did.

“Suddenly I saw people that I normally not see, even on those first climbs – they did get away, but after a particularly rough section I got them back. At the 65km I decided to attack them and went for my life. I’ve never raced this hard before and then I could catch up to Brendan Skerke and Garry James as well as another Austrian. We worked so hard together and at the last feedzone I saw a fellow A2 racer from my category ride away and I said to the guys, ‘Ride for me, I want to catch that guy.’ – I’ve never seen three guys destroy themselves the way Garry, Bren and the Austrian did for me today. I remember, I was on Garry’s wheel who absolutely killed himself up a climb! At the finish I felt like that time at Laura, for a couple of minutes all I could do was concentrate on my breathing.

“This was the hardest and best day on my bike – the kilometres just melted away today, it seemed much quicker than yesterday even.”

The result: PODIUM on the Queen Stage!!!

Here is the FB LIVE feed from the team from Skybury: