4 days 4 stages over 357km of racing
Stage 1 - 60km circuit race 12laps
At the start of this I was so nervous I felt sick, the pace for this race is usually something of a tour de France stage this year it wasn’t like previous year. This year I didn’t even know if I was going to keep up, my last road race was this tour last year and I hadn’t raced the roadie since then ether, however I have been training hard for mountain bike nationals and doing lots of road work.
The race started off well and I found myself having a few turns on the front of the peloton of just over 100 riders, a small break went up the road while I floated down the back of the bunch (right where ya don’t want to be, it makes it twice as hard) so I started riding up the side I saw a few guys going off the front trying to make a break away to get to the other 8 or so riders up the road, next thing everyone was slowing down letting them go... seen as I was full tap on the outside I thought stuff this I’m out of here, literally as hard as I could go (Garmin data after shows max heart rate as 200) I attacked and had Josh Atkins a member of Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong development team on my wheel he soon rolled around me and we were off we got a bunch of 12 or so together where we lapped as hard as we could until we caught the other break, I was stuffed by this point and couldn’t lap through very well. We ended up staying away from the main bunch where most of the big hitters were putting 1min 45sec into them, so I was 18th on GC at the end of day 1 and had a good gap back to the other 80 ish riders.
Stage 2 - 128km Takaka hill stage
I have never had a good day up takaka but it is usually on the 3rd day this year it was day 2 and I was hoping for a good 1. Early on in this stage there are a few sprints so the pace was on, then there is a KOM on the top of the raye saddle, Jeremy Yates and another were up the road so they got the 1st 2 place points and I thought I might give it a go to get the 3rd but George Bennett and Josh Atkins (livestrong boys) and James Williamson (Pureblack Racing) were also going for it, I was matching them up the climb and over the top however James was going to get it so we sat up and rested over the top and waited for the peloton to come after that things got even harder Rollston got on the front for about 30 mins and completely drilled it I was near the front maybe 15 riders back everyone was in single file 100 riders long, I didn’t think I was going to last that however I did, it didn’t get any easier after a small bunch attacked in a feed zone on one of the bigger hills we were all balls out trying to get back to them I was trying my best to roll through and do my work to catch up so I didn’t lose too much time on GC however it had its toll and I had to sit in and rest up as much as I could before the 18km climb of takaka hill, I rolled into the bottom of it with a hell of a guts ache don’t know what from, and wrecked legs I did the best I have ever done up there but still lost 8ish mins to the leader.
Stage 3 - 119km stage with 3 KOM’s
This stage was hell, I had a good few hours, 60ish km to go I blew bad as it was a really hot day and I started on my peak fuels way to early, for the 1st 2 hours I was on the front of the bunch drilling it trying to catch the break that was up the road, then it all went down hill from there, at the feed station I could only get 1 bottle and no food and I was well out of water so the bottle went straight into me, then we had about 35km to go with 2 hills I was all over, getting dropped from the main bunch and only just hanging on to the guys I was riding with to the end. That afternoon I was in a bad way I ate more food in 2 hours than I eat in 2days, drank lots and by night I felt like I might come right for day 4.
Day 4 – 50km hill st Crit
All I wanted to do was stay in the bunch and finish off the tour in a good way, so that’s what I did, the circuit was only a 2.6km lap and we had 20 laps where we had some really tight corners to get round hitting speeds of over 65kmph, jumping man holes, hitting cats eyes and some really rough roads it was very scary but fun.
I wanted a top 20 finish in the tour this year but after having a shit day on day 3 I just wanted to do as good as I could, I ended up 30th only 13 mins down and would have made the top 20 if I didn’t have a that bad day. o well defiantly be back next year and will look to do a lot more road races after having so much fun and meeting new people.
Thanks to Sam from Waiariki for looking after us and sorting most of the trip.
Season is all on
Carl
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