I was impressed with the riders in the tour and the organization. They have people self-select for the fast group, the medium group or the slower/social group. Matt and I are in the social group, but even in there people are pretty serious. They let the slower group go 30 minutes before everyone else and then we try hard to not let the fast group catch us. Even in the slower group the faster people form large peletons and take turns pulling at the front. We were averaging ~20-21 mph.
Day #1 left Lower Hutt and started off up the Rumetuka hill, one of the hardest hills for the whole week. They have a car and a motorcycle leading the bikers and one following behind (and an ambulance follows the whole way). This made it seem much safer going up the long windy hill. It's a beautiful valley, and I'll post some photos later. Unfortunately I broke a spoke and by the time I got to the top of the hill my wheel was all out of true and I had to catch a ride down on the truck.
The mechanics loaned me another back wheel so I could continue with stage 2, but as our pack started off I realized I wasn't able to shift gears. Bummer! I had to pedal back and get them to fix that so I spent most of the next stage pedaling hard by myself trying to catch up to my group. Matt ended up in a fast peleton that beat me by ~20 minutes. Fortunately two guys overtook me and I joined them and rode with them for the last 15 miles. That put us into Masterton. There's not a lot going on in Masterton on a Sunday night but we were pretty beat anyway.
Day #2 took us from Masterton to Palmerston North. Matt and I were part of a big peleton that was going ~20mph. Every big hill we dropped a few more riders and ended up with about 10 of us going fast, ~24-25mph. Then we went up one more big hill which separated things even more and I found myself with 2 other guys in front. We shared the lead until the end when we sprinted for the finish. It was really fun to do as a race, felt like a mini Tour de France with peletons, breakaways, comaraderie, etc. Now we're in Palmerston North which is a big college town. We'll have dinner and awards (they give yellow jerseys for the overall leader and jerseys for the best hill climber, best sprinter, age group leaders, etc.) There are a suprising number of very fit 50-70 year old riders on the tour. We also have an ex All Black and a Channel 3 newscaster on our tour. Apparently because of the newscaster we are supposed to make the news this week, we'll see. There are 3 Americans beside me, a few from Europe, some from Australia, and everyone else from all over New Zealand.
No comments:
Post a Comment