Wild Coaster 10th October

This was the first time I had entered the Wild Coaster (a race from Greymouth to Westport). We traveled down the day before on a very cold and wet Friday and stayed at the the excellent Neptunes Backpackers.

The following morning it was still cold but with the sun shining and a promising tail wind we registered at the race start and were soon on our way. There were two strong teams that were obviously going to be the main race players. Tasman Glass were well represented (they seem to have a fairly fluid team membership) and a team from Hokitika certainly looked like they meant business.

I decided to try and stick as close to the front as possible to be able to go with any breaks. Attacks started right from the gun with Dean and Keiran making a move. I bridged but it was all soon bought back together again. Another early break was neutralised when we all had to stop for a train. Soon after that a group of about 5 got away. I bridged and was also joined by a few others. As we started the first climb along the coast the group thinned out some more and eventually we were left with about 12 of us consisting of mainly Tasman Glass and Hokitika riders (there were about 3 of us that were not team affiliated). The attacks continued - usually with a team rider and a individual rider and the pace was quite high. Climbing up to Punakaiki we lost a couple of riders.

I finally dropped off with a later climb (the last of the individual riders to go) when another rider allowed a gap to open that I couldn't close in time. I joined a Hokitika rider in the chase of what was left of the pack. He lapped out for a bit but then couldn't come through and I ended up towing him all of the way to Carters Beach. As we hit the coast the wind became a strong side wind and we were joined by Dean and the other 2 individual riders. I managed to beat them in the sprint and ended up placing 7th in a time of 2:51:58 - 5 minutes behind the winners - not too bad and a nice day out.