It was only one out of the 3 complaining weather items today.  Windy.  And not that, compared to the prior 3 days.  The stage was 135 km and finished on a 4 km climb.  But before the finish climb there were two or three 1 km walls than a 27 in the back was mandatory.

The Zoo Keeper/Trek team is protecting the race lead, so they rode tempo the first 100km with the help of a bunch of individual “friends”of Hayden.  The smack came down with 35 km to go.  Side wind, Uphill.  Game over for 80% of the field.  Three of us made the final selection of 17 or so.  Which is good for our Team GC of course.  3 GC guys got away in the flury of attacks during the 20 km run in to the climb.  We started the climb as a group, that split up immediately.  I have not ablility to breath deeply, so I instantly started riding my own speed.  Brian looked good the first km, but kind of ran out of steam.  I haven’t seen the results, but it seemed like a good day.

Tomorrow is a long hard stage to Teanu.  It is super windy always and has a pretty good climb 40 km or so from the finish that usually splits the field.  I can hardly wait until this is over.  That is how much fun I am having.

Go to cyclingnews.com or tourofsouthland.com for results.

Observations-

Cycling shorts that are all one color, other than black, such as orange, red, white, make the riders butts seem huge.

There are zillions of sheep in this country.  If you ask a New Zealander what they do with them, they say they export them to the US.  I don’t think so.

This race has a huge attrition rate.  I think over a 1/4 of the field has dropped out during the first 3 days ( and I don’t blame them).

The roads here are chip and seal, with huge rock.  So bumpy that I’m riding only 90psi and my right shifter rattled apart today.  No extra Shimano levers, so I’ve got a right Sram Force lever and rear derailluer.  Good time to test them out.

New Zealand looks like a huge garden in the spring. 

It is windy here!