Tour de Vineyards, Nelson

Happy new year to all, It was a hard start to my new year with Tour De Vineyards. Overall I had a tough tour finding it harder than last year. I did enjoy it though, I love hanging up the mountain bike and dusting off the road bike for some hard racing now and then and Tour de Vineyards is an outstanding event to kick off our summer Mountain bike season.

Our mission started on boxing day, Thanks to Waiariki for the van and ferry. We also had the helping hand from Sam as our manager/masseuses. The girls tour started on the 28th December and we started on the 1st January.

This is how my tour unfolded.

Stage one- 60km circuit race around "Hope circuit", I held in the bunch working on the front near the end, After this stage I was still feeling good and ready for the next day.

Stage two- 130km with Hill top finish on Takaka, by the time we got to the base of Takaka (16km climb) I was already pretty blown, the effects from yesterday where showing presences and I fell far back in the field by the finish. Ending up 64th ish.

Stage three- 120km stage race. feeling pretty gadded by now I held in there for 90km before a big group of us getting dropped on the 2nd King of the mountain seeing us to the finish.

Stage four- 50km "Hill street" circuit. The pace was on from the word go and I was hanging in there until around 5 laps to go. From here I started swinging off the back being dropped several times and getting back on only to get dropped again but on 3 laps to go I just couldn't get back on and the bunch drifted away from me and that was my Tour over.

Good tour once again and though out the tour I was using Peak fuel gels, bars and hydration drink mix, thanks to AvantiPlus.