13th Dec - Kerrs 4 Stage Tour

This mini tour would be one of my favourites.  Stage 1 started in Richmond and finished at the top of the Reay.  I got in a last minute break with Dean Fulton.  Unfortunately Dean wasn't really that interested in continuing the break.  Being somewhat committed by this stage I towed him to the bottom of Reay's and tried to make it up the hill.  Dean got there first and I was caught by Caleb 3/4 of the way up.  Thankfully I managed to hold off everyone else and so placed 3rd.

The next stage is a time trial from the top of the Reay to the top of Kerrs.  I struggled a bit on this one but managed to place 4th although I was now about 1.5 minutes down.

After a brief lunch we started stage 4 which goes from the bottom of Kerrs, down to Korere and then over Spooners to finish in Belgrove.  There were several attacks some of which I went with but it was unlikely that I would gain 1.5 minutes.  Caleb attacked at and broke away with a small group.  They started to pull out some time on us.  At Kohatu a few of us started to up the pace to chase them down.  I had decided that I might as well help Dean retain the lead and did some big turns.  The pace was quite high and in the rolling terrain leading up to the foot of Spooners we lost a few people.  We caught them just at the base of the hill.  I was pretty tired from my effort but managed to reach the top just behind the leading bunch.  At the end of the stage I still retained my 4th placing but had pulled in some time against Mike Anderson who was 3rd.

The last stage runs from Belgrove to Ranzau.  This stage is a mass start with all the grades combined together which can make for some scarey riding.  My solution to this was to ride on the front and to try and keep the pace high.  This worked pretty well.  I made a last minute attack (mainly to try and get out of the way of the other grades sprinting) which didn't quite make it but was close.

I finished 4th overall and was fairly happy with how things had gone.