November 21, 2012 (Karongi, Rwanda) – Canada’s Bruno Langlois attacked an early break of approx. 12 riders, taking one Eritrean with him. Doing most of the work himself Langlois had nothing to lose, seeing as he was already 12 minutes down on GC. South Africa rode tempo at the front of the bunch until the bottom of the 17km climb after which they followed the wheels of the Ethiopians, who cranked up the pace and attacks, reducing the peloton to a selection of Rwandans, Kenyans, an Algerian, and myself.

Time gaps to the break maxed out at nearly three minutes, but eventually dwindled to 45 seconds at the 2,300m-high summit. As myself and the GC leaders – including a full contingent of Team Rwanda riders protecting their leader, Adrien Niyonshuti – descended the seemingly endless twists of terraced farm vistas, sustaining well over 70kph, we passed Langlois’ Eritrean break-mate, who had punctured.

Still at 40k from the finish the Ethiopians hadn’t satisfied whatever hunger was driving them, but the next time moto read 1:35 they seemed to resign themselves to a cat-and-mouse 2nd place arrival in Karongi.

As for the rest of Canada at the Tour, the real battle was in their stomachs. Rémi Pelletier-Roy is our second member, after Tim Abercrombie, who can’t keep anything down, having spent last night on, and over, a toilet. Jean-François Racine stayed with the failing contender all day, pacing him up the more than 2,400m of climbing, while Abercrombie struggled alone off the back, having difficulty just turning the cranks to finish the 150k stage.

Full results pending resolution of tonight’s hotel wi-fi and power outages.