Duck!

I had a run in with some Ducks today out training, an incident that reminded me of a previous run in with the my web footed friends.

It would have been 3-4 weeks ago and I was coming off a decent on scenic drive and I see a bit of a kerfuffle in the road ahead, so I slow down to see whats going on. As I get closer I see what I am going to presume is a mother duck and with her were 7 or 8 ducklings crossing the road in an orderly fashion. So being the good and noble citizen that I am, I start flapping my right arm. This wasn't an attempt to impress them with my flight but to slow down the motorists coming down the hill so that we can avoid a calamity. Crisis averted as everyone crosses safely and everyone moves on with their day a little happier for seeing ducklings.

Today I had my second close call, well hardly a close call it would have been if they were geese cause those bastards can hurt....bad memories as a child! These 2 today, which I think were a man duck and a girl duck because they had different coloured plumage, were just strolling down the road with not a care in the world. I gave them a wide birth but they didn't even flinch, oblivious to be presence. These ducks today were tough, too tough to walk on the footpath or even the grass. Hey they were even too tough to fly, just walking down the road like they owned the place. In thinking of my earlier encounter, they were tough ducks too, they didn't wait for no ducks crossing sign they just manned up and went for a stroll.

10 things I think I think: Tour of Southland

Ok so here is the new friday feature.

1. Its reputation for being a tough tour is well earned.


2. Thank God the whole tour wasn't held in Bluff like conditions, more so for Joe's sake.


3. Spending only 4 weeks of the 10 weeks leading into the tour training isn't great prep.


4. Banna cake makes good race food, especially when the icing is in the middle of the cake so it doesn't stick to the tin foil.


5. Some guys never saw the front of the bike race for 900+kms, and I'm not talking being at the front either.


6. Is being 67th on gc really that much better than 68th?


7. The boys in black and white rode alot better than most of has had thought. Oddy seemed to be love feeding it to himself, especially over the top of blackmount.
   
8. I wasn't credited with my sprint point!


9. You cant explain the tour to people who haven't experienced the joy of it all


10. Doug Bath saved the tv coverage from being a complete embarassment

A few thanks

for making Southland 07 so memorable...

• Nancy and Chub from the pub for backing the team and having so much energy for cycling. Some of the names on your wall are truly impressive.
• Paul for making sure the team run smoothly and for giving up yout own time to put up with us, oh and for hooking me up with a big bed, cheers mate I hope you got something out of.
• Dale for making us lunch and race food each day and for picking us up each day. The blankets after bluff were also a life saver. Also to your sister for putting us up and feeding us the first night.
• Mum and Dad for coming down and supporting, even if it wasn't everything you expected.
• Jim McKensie, Trevor and the others that came in the pub bus, cheers for the cheers.
• Donna, The Kia rocked! Go buy a Kia folks, you'll never be short of a cup holder.
• Bronnie, Jodi and the other bar staff for letting me run havoc on Saturday Night.
• My team mates, the wolfman for being just nuts (who does 3 ironman and southland in the same year) Crooksie for suffering all week and still being able to laugh. Leon for not giving me TB and James for supporting my anti cervelo tirades.
• Deborah for picking me up from the airport, its good to be back!
• prob missed someone so cheers you!

Day 6

The mornings stage was pretty unevntful really, in fact it was one of the quieter stages of the tour.

The afternoon stage from Winton to Invercargill is a good chance to see who is feeling the effects of the tour and who is getting stronger. I was starting to feel pretty ordinary as i have picked up a cold from one of my team mates, it sounds like he has tuberculosis so i hope mine doesn't get that bad. Out of the blocks I followed a move and 3 of us got a little bit of rope but as the sprint ace was decided it was never going to work. Still it was a good chance to get the green shirt out in front leaving Winton and the sponsors saw it up the road so that was a good thing.

It was nice making to to invercargill and it was pretty cool riding home with Aaron Lawson. For someone who hadn't ridden a bike tour before he rode bloody well and with a few more miles under the belt I am sure he will be able to do something in a big tour before too long. I wish the last stage was a parade like in le tour but that would be against everything that southland is i Guess.

After the stage it was back to winton, then back to invercargill then back to winton to enjoy a few festivities, meals and the like. One of the traditions of the team is that the riders pour beers for the locals on the last night, so I clocked in with a couple of solid hours of bar work which was great fun and a good chance to give something back to the people who had made Tour memorable. We were eventually kicked off to bed shortly before 5am when they thought it was time to shut the bar for good.

Day 5

This is normally a stage where all kinds of strange things can happen, its 165km from Winton to Te Anau with a decent climb 50km from home to split things up.

Mum and Dad had come down he night before so was good to get sent off by them and a group from the pub. The stage was in memory of Scott Peoples who races Southland last year and cleaned house on a couple of stages. He was killed a couple of months later when he was driven into whilst training...pretty serious stuff and brings home the risks of what we all love.

The stage was pretty uneventful for the first few hours with nothing major to really put you in a massive world of pain. In saying that you can go to sleep down here cause next thing you know you'll turn out of a head wind and be in the gutter for the next 15kms so even when 'cruising' its still taking a bit out of you.

About 20km from the climb I went to go back for bottles and Joe come back too, but those boys at the front must have heard cause the gc boys starting playing their cards. I was 20m of the back when this happened to had to flag the feed and hit the survival button, Joe was less fortunate and went shit can. It never really let up and we hit the climb pretty well warmed up, somehow I managed to climb with a group of 15 that thanks to some hard riding and easing off up the road, we made contact with 25kms to go.

I ended up second group on the road at the end cause as we hit the lake front we were doing 50Kms+ in the crossies and as like the rest of the days i was lacking that little bit of snot needed. Still a pretty good day and the legs felt better again so that promising. Last year i never made it to Blackmount with the front group let alone being front group on the other side.

Day 4 to Crown Range

The day looked like it was going to be a beauty with hardly any wind and no rain, to make things even better there was also no snow like there was on this stage last year. The legs were feeling pretty good today so I wanted to see if i couldn't sneak away in anything early on. The stage has a KOM about 25km in which i struggle on every year and I had the good oil that the move wasn't going until after the climb.

Being me, I followed a few moves before the climb but nothing stuck and then battled over the KOM. The move went a fair bit after the climb and never got more than 90seconds as there was a high gc man there and a little angry man sitting on and popping the sprint primes...onya scotty...hate!!!!!

The race split up when the climbing started which meant it was time to deploy the parachute and make it to the finish which was done without too much drama. We did have a bit of a disaster of a feed earlier on in the day though, as soon as the 50km board was passed i went back for some jam sammies and fudge and a bottle and then when i got back it was a procession of each of my team mates going back 1 at a time. The problem with no radios is its hard organise collective feeding. It was quite funny to watch, dont think we could have planned it worse.

after the stage we had to first change a wheel on the car, when i say we i mean Paul but he did a good job once we realised it was probably best the car had no riders in it whilst up on jacks. We then headed to Nancy and Chubs holiday house in Arrowtown for whitebait fritters and a cold speights. It was almost too hot to sit in the sun and the location was mint....couldn't have got much better really

Tour of Southland day 3

This is the killer day with back to back stages from Invercargill to Tuatapere then from Tuatapere to Winton.

Surprise surprise it was windy and wet for the first stage so i rugged up super warm with pockets full of food. One thing i learnt last year on these double stages is that if you don't keep warm in the morning and eat all stage then your going to blow in the arvo. Good thing i rugged up warm as it was shit can for me as soon as we hit the first bit of cross winds, big time shit can too early. So we formed a laughing group of about 14 and were managing our losses in the beaut conditions until 2 twats hit it over one of the KOM's and split the group. I was out the back with 3 others with the legs protesting in a major way when 2 of the guys jumped in the sag wagon, so 40km from home it was me and another champ trying to make time cut. We had both given up hope until somehow we made contact again with the group and made time cut...just.

We were looked after mint between stages with Chub and Nancy organising us a hotel to go back to and Dale feeding us and Paul making sure the morale was still there. Its amazing how when you hit rock bottom all you can do is laugh.

The afternoon stage started dry and probably because the fact that it felt like we were going home the morale was high, and i rode very high up in the bunch all day. In fact i saw the break go on the climb and just about rode across to it but thought better of it. I was riding pretty strong and when i did look back the bunch only had half its riders left so we mustn't have been mucking around. Got shelled not far from town in the crossies but felt pretty good about life again and it was mint seeing everyone from the pub at the finish, being able to ride up to your bed was pretty cool. Maybe things are starting to come right.

Day 2

165km Invercargill to Gore

The plan today was to survive, if my legs were today were as bad as yesterday then it was going to make an interesting ride. Again there was significant wind but luckily the it appeared fine enough at the start. The first hour was pretty fast with us covering 46kms which included a hell for leather chase after a pile up in the middle of the bunch. Then after the break had been established we had an hour or 2 of tempo which was appreciated. It was a bit disappointing to hear one of the tv commentators giving us a bagging for cruising, but i guess when you have a 6 day tour with 5 man teams sometimes its best for everyone to let the breaks stick if they dont effect GC.

I went back to the car during the middle of the stage to give them my vest as things were starting to warm up a bit....what a mistake, within 5km it was hailing! not a great deal but just enough to momentarily freeze you.

There were still moments of madness as over the top of ever KOM there seemed to be nice bits of flat cross wind sections where the race was splintered before coming back together. Ended up getting canned over the last KOM and came in with the first group of the peloton.

Went down to the pub, we are staying at the middle pub for the tour, to watch the Melbourne cup and rub shoulders with the locals but we all lucked out on picking the winner but it was still pretty cool catching up with with the locals as they all were interested and had good stories to tell of previous tours.

Tour of Southland day 1

Welcome to the Winton Middle pub team for the 2007 tour of Southland, In the green and white this year are Joe Crooks, Reon Hextall, James Gibson, me and Jeremy Smart. After meeting the boys and the sponsors and half of Winton it was time to get down to business.

Stage 1 was a 4.2km tt, I find it hard getting up for this as I know in the grand scheme of things time lost here is irrelevant to 90% of the riders. Add to the fact that the TT bike, fast wheels, aero hat.... were all sitting back in Auckland it was going to be fun going Eddy Merckx style. Oh yeah and chuck in the hail and wind it was was a fun little test. I still rode the course 100% but put out a pretty weak time, loosing close to 40seconds more than last year.

Stage 2 was an 80km jaunt to Bluff then up the bluff hill, if you haven't been up it then it becomes very difficult to explain. Last year the bunch arrived in tact at the bottom of the hill to race up for stage honours.....not this year though. Within 10km there where groups all over the place as the race was ripped to shreds. The wind was insane and the hail/sleet was intense, it was actually very painful to ride in.

2 things i wont forget from the stage were having to walk a steep section as i cramped and there is no way to get back on your bike until you can get to a car to hold onto to get going, and seeing Joe at the top of the hill. He got into the van and just looked absolutely drained of any life, the realisation of southland had hit him pretty hard and i tried to convince him we couldn't have too many more days like that.

Dale from the pub did say it was the worst she had seen it in her 14 years of following the tour!

All systems go....ish!

After 9 days of panic training I think i am as close to being ready for southland as i can be, hit it pretty hard over the weekend which blew out a few cobwebs. Took out meechy to show him the Torture loop on saturday, of course he played by the rules and only rode the big dog!, and then on sunday rode over to albany bunch. So after some ekkies each day I was pretty deep in the box sunday afternoon. So deep that my normal 60minute siesta became a 3.5hour hibernation, and that was backed up by another 9 hours that night....good bye cobwebs.

My team sounds mint though for the tour, I'm riding for the Winton Middle pub team which from all accounts sounds like they are great hosts. Our manager is Paul Dahl and between him and the pub they have really hooked us up so everywhere there is a stage finish we have a place to go and keep warm/shower/eat/sleep, even on the split stages so there will be no excuses.

The team is also getting the hookups from Kia Motors and Maxxis tyres so thats pretty sweet.

I fly down on sat morning so between now and then its a case of resting and staying upright. My hip is still quite swollen but all my bandages are off except for the hip so feeling a little be more mobile.