Tuesday: Stages 5 & 6

By Mat Fletcher

Day Three, Stage 5: Palmerston North to Hunterville – 63km

The morning’s stage has a long uphill pull of 450mtrs elevation over 45km, with a few sharp pinches in the middle. Then the course descends into the Rangitikei River and then climbs Vinegar Hill which is a sharp climb of around 10%. From then it is 5km of flat to the finish.

We started off neutralized for the first 5km to get us out of town. The normal jostling was going on with people trying to get to the front. The problem is that when the hammer goes on they get killed off and make large gaps. This is what happened and John and I managed to get back to the lead group of 15 just before it had to stop for a train. The rest of the group caught back on so unfortunately the effort was wasted. The same thing happened again and we were back in the chase group with 6 of us working and the ones that made it fall apart sitting in. We got to 100 mtrs of the lead group but just could make the gap. We had a really fast and winding decent into the river valley which has a few one lane bridges and nasty little pinches just for extra punishment. The climb up Vinegar hill took my legs and John got away with 5 others. I crossed the line about 1 minute down on them and my legs were feeling broken, due to yesterdays 35km time trial and the chase this morning.

Stage 5 results:

Mat: + 4.13. 41st in overall GC at + 23.02
John: + 3.08. 36h in overall GC at + 16.31

Day Three, Stage 6: Hunterville to Wanganui – 60km

The afternoon’s stage runs from Hunterville to Wanganui through another back country road. It has 3 KOM climbs which were sharp, but generally runs down hill back to sea level at Wanganui. The start was much the same with people trying to make up places on the start line and then get killed off on the first climb. We got going and the first climb sorted most of them out so I though great, we are way with about 20 others. We had some really fast and winding descents after the first climb with a bunch of one lane bridges to make life interesting. About 20km into the stage the race was neutralised due to 1.5km of road works. I was deep gravel that road bikes sunk into so the decision was a good one. We waited for all in sundry to arrive and the yet again, the tail markers worked their way to the front again. We were neutralised for another 5km due to pot holes and lose gravel. We got to the bottom of a sharp little rise so I punched it straight up the outside and passed about 60 riders and got back on the front by the top. We broke away form the rest and there were around 25 riders in the lead group. The kids smashed us on the next KOM climb and our group was down to about 15 riders. We worked well together for a while and then they gave up. I launched a few attacks to encourage some action which resulted in them chasing but not rolling through. John was behind in the next group back chasing hard. The next KOM climb was nasty at 10% as well and I was starting to gag a bit but held on. I came good after that and 5 of us started to put the hammer down and shelled a few out the back for good measure. We finished in Wanganui in the second bunch with a + 3.01 ST finish with around 15 riders. We went to the Cycling Club for the day’s presentations and the Royal Hotel for Dinner. I was pretty happy with the day as I managed to claw back 14 places in GC from the Stage 3 disaster yesterday, where I was in 55th place after it and 26th place before hand!

Stage 6 results:

Mat: + 3.01. 39th in overall GC at + 25.38, 14th in grade
John: + ST. 35h in overall GC at + 19.05, 9th in Grade