This was the first time back at the tour for a couple of years. I decided to enter the elite again but did not have any great expectations about placing. Two years ago I just slipped into the top 10 and I guess felt that to go any better than that would be a big challenge.
For me stage one was divided into two parts. The first half I was only sitting in at the back not getting to adventurous. There was a breakaway containing at least Will A.
After the bulk of the hills we come out onto the main road to Dargaville. Just before the flat road starts there are a couple of rather tough climbs. I decided - pretty much spur of the moment - to ride a bit firmer before the climb started proper. Me and one other got a little break. I rode harder up the climb and we got even further ahead. At this point I thought that the peloton would close us down but instead we caught one of the guys off the front (Mark C). He was not in the greatest of shape and although tried to come through a couple of times really was toast! I bit further on could see Will, he waited for us... and as soon as we caught him we were off!
I jumped on the front and upped the pace... to on 45km/h and tried to hold it for a few minutes at a time. The other guys were keeping the pace up there too. At one point we were given a split of about 2 mins.
With 5km to go took a quick look and I thought that we might actually stay away... but no it was not to be... with 1 km to go they were right on us... I tried really hard and we held them off until the bridge but they caught us just at the bottom and I was first into the left hand turn (with 300m to go) but was about 18th over the line!
JK go the win and Will 3rd. It was good fun and worth the effort!
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