March 25th - Old Farts Tour Stage 5

Stage 5 took us to from Christchurch to Kaikoura.  After a better than expected sleep on the couch we started out on what promised to be a sunny day.  Unfortunately it was also windy so for the first leg through to Culverden required an amount of grovelling with a number of us feeling the effects of yesterdays time trial efforts.  After a short stop at Culverden for supplies we turned off at Mouse Point and started our climb towards Mt Lyford.  At this point we had a bit of a tail wind to help us along but it was along this section that the first hint of decension permeated through the crew.  Basically some of the better climbers were tired of waiting for the vertically challenged who took every opportunity to display their dominance when the road pointed downwards.  We stopped briefly at Mt Lyford to allow most of the guys to load up on icecream sundaes.  As things became more heated in the next section I took advantage of the terrain to break away on my own.  It wasnt an attack as such - more of a sustained increase in speed.  Anyway it meant that I had pretty much the best part of the ride to myself and got a good run at the downhill sections.  After a while I could see Gary in the distance so I waited for him to catch up.  Together we carried on and eventually stopped when the valley flattened out.  We stopped for Gary to use his cell phone and saw some of the others coming across.  When they joined we lapped out until Ritchie did a big surge.  I counted with another surge and strung the rest out until we got to our ficticous finish line.  We joined back up and rode along the main road into Kaikoura.  The Hotel was very nice and it wasnt too long before the rest of the crew appeared.

Hannah phoned to say that her Grandfather had died.  I toyed with biking back home that evening but didn't have any lights and so opted to cut the ride short the next day and to abandon the tour in Blenheim.