Tour of Northland

Bit of an update...

Stage 1 – First win!

Today was a good day. It was my first win since my crash. The stage was about 90km with a few wee hills in it but nothing big. With about 40km to go I got away down a descent and was joined a few kms later by James Oram. We managed to hold on to a 30sec lead by the finish where I edged him out in the final. Was good to get the win but I could tell that the body took a bit of a hammering. First race back was a bit of a shock to the system. Had been doing miles leading up to it so was far from prepared for the intensity.

Stage 2 – 80km

Joke of a day. The stage was pretty hilly with a 13km climb about 20km from the finish. Defending yellow wasn’t ideal at all. Legs were average. Brad carter and Matt Gorter got away early on and had about a minute and a half at the bottom of the climb. On the first half of the climb there was a flurry of attacks which helped push the pace as James and I made sure we covered all we could. Then it settled into a pretty good rhythm and we managed to catch the two just before the top. Nick Lovegrove got away with 10km to go and was never seen again and got the stage. This was alright because he crashed and dnf’d the day before. There was quite literally a 700m long ‘wall’ 2km out from the finish. I tailed off by about 50m up here and then dropped my chain…..twice….then crashed on the descent trying to push it a bit hard to catch up…..so yeah, lost a bit of time.

Stage 3 – 90km

Shit stage. Flatted about 2km in just as the pace went nuts. Got back on but was feeling average and couldn’t do much all day. Felt alright coming into the finish which was up a wee rise. However I forgot to tighten my limiter screw which caused my chain to drop between my wheel and cassette the day before, so the exact same thing happen and lost even more time. Pretty depressing day really….lost my wallet for a few hours which was a bit stressful.

Stage 4 – 80km

Was amped for the stage today. Had heard from a few people that it was a pretty hard course. They were spot on with that little piece of information. 10km in thought I had found my legs enough to have a dig off the front. Attacked up what I thought was a wee rise…..turned a corner and realised it kept going up for another half a km….hurt a bit, but I managed to get a good gap. The next few kms I was solo until a wee group came across up a climb which Brad Carter attacked from straight away. Managed to hold on to his wheel and we got a reasonable gap. Got shut down pretty quick however. Brad went again as soon as we were caught and eventually went on to win the stage with a pretty impressive 75km solo effort. I had a dig up another hill a few kms later and was followed by Daniel Poole. We worked together well for the next 20km trying to bridge to Brad. Got a time check at 1.30 and sat up because we weren’t making any ground up. Brad must have been stomping! Had a wee dig with 1km to go and got off the front and rolled in behind the 3 boys up the road. So good day out!

Stage 4 Finish

Tour was a good bit of training before I head overseas with the BikeNZ U23 track endurance team for a season on the road.

Cheers for reading.

Big thanks to both sets of my grandparents as well as my parents for supporting my cycling since the very beginning. Would be bloody hard to make it in this sport without the support from these people!

WB