Wellington - Auckland Day1

Stage1


Well after all the reports of rain there actually wasnt any. The stage started with a 8km neutral section which with over 140 riders brought its own sort of stress. Finally we were off racing. I had taken every opportunity to move up in the neutral zone so when the pace came on I wasnt too badly placed. A guy dropped his chain on the first small climb which produced a small amount of panic as there was nowhere to go to get around him but I finally managed it and moved back up to the front. When the tandem took off down the road I decided to follow. This broke off a small group and as we started the first climb of the day I was well warmed up. I managed to take the points on the climb and along with an under 30 year rider (Tom Francis) had a good gap. Given we were faced with the main climb of the day we sat up and waited. We started the climb quite quickly and although the gradient is not that great the pressure was on. I tried to follow an acceleration from Tom but unfortunately was unable to continue to match his pace. This proved to be my undoing and I never fully recovered. Without any knowledge on how the climb went, pacing was quite tricky and I ended up placing 5th on the stage (2nd in the 40-50 age group) 46sec down on GC and 16sec down on the age group GC. Rob finished just behind me which was a good result. It was quite blustery riding down the hill and I was pleased to not have deep section wheels.
We had lunch at Featherston where we wilted in the hot summer sun.






Stage2


Stage2 to Masterton was fast and flat with a slight cross wind. The pace was realtively quick but it was exceptionally hot. There was a bit of undulation which split the group up but still in the run in to the line there was a large group of maybe 50 riders. I kept well out of the way and rolled in for bunch time. Eileen was the only female to finish with us and as the female race leader ended up with a huge lead over the rest of her field. Further back in the race there were a couple of crashes. Chris thankfully avoided one that occured just in front of him and the rest of the Nelson crew safely unfortuneately the Watson wagon was not so lucky and ended up having to be trucked to Masterton when the cab filled with smoke.


At the prize giving I was given the climbing jersey to wear - mainly because all of the other contenders were wearing age GC jerseys so while I'm wearing it its not actually mine.