Tour of Tarinaki Day One

Tour of Tarinaki day one. On the way down last night I started feeling like I was getting the flu, it would be no surprise as the dude I work with has had a nasty one all week. So I woke up today not expecting too much. It was a chilly clear morning and we headed out for an early start. I got there a bit late so had no time to put on my queer-spares, got a quick warm-up and I was off. The TT was different from last year, this time an out and back. I finished it in 35th place, pretty good for a MTBer who usually has issues with TT's.

On the second stage (after a nice lunch and some catching up with fellow rider friends) we headed out for a mainly flat race. Soon into the race there was a 8 person break-away, so I put the gas on and chased down. I got a gap on the bunch with ease, and as I was gaining on the break I loked over my shoulder and Joe Cooper (the dude that won the TT by 20-30 sec) also had a gap and was chasing me. I waited for him and we worked together to get into the break. We worked in the break for a while until I noticed that my bars were coming loose. We had a good gap, but the bunch had been slowly reeling us in. There was no tec van behind the break so I had to drop off to behind the bunch where I tightened my stem, whilst going 45km/hr along very rough roads then jumped back into the bunch which had caught the break.

With 10km to go Gordy and two others made a break, and Gordy won the sprint for 1st. The bunch finished 50m behind and I think I was around 10th across the line.

Looking forward to a wet, thunderstormy day tomorrow, so hopefully I can keep this flu at bay.