Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving. ~Albert Einstein

today was either going to be easy, or stupidly tough
after 16km there was a 20km cat 2 climb, which was either going to be ridden flat nack to force a split or a solid tempo, i was hoping for the latter, and thankfully got it
me and guddy tried to go with all the moves in the opening 16km, and i actually hit the bottom of the climb a bit gassed, but DFL rode a solid tempo for their climber to get the points and i settled in ok, i actually even ended up dragging guddy into position a few times with dream so it was to bad at all, the only bit that sucked was it didnt decend straight away but we stayed along the top for a wee while and went down and up for about another 9km, but it was attack city. again i tried to roll a few moves but with a big decent it was never going to happen. thats the other thing ive learnt this tour, is holy shit those protour guys can decend FAST. it was actually kinda scary how fast they could take corners when they didnt know the roads, jimmy casper is just flat out nuts, i went into a corner near the front, and when i went into it thought i was going in way to fast, and was getting a touch panicky, then i looked and jimmy casper going round the outside of me near the barrier. yeah, it was mental.
after the climb it was pan flat with more wind until the final 10km which we climbed back up to about 800m to the finish, i went in a few moves, it was all pretty much back together at 10km to go, i lasted in the bunch until 5km to go until “grupetto” was shouted, and i instantly eased off, my pins were wrecked, even if i made it with the bunch to the finish there was now way i could sprint so there wasnt much point in smashing myself for no reason, im not a sadist when i dont need to be haha
i ended up rolling in with fellow kiwi jeremy vennel, which was good to catch up with. on a sad note, hayden godfrey missed time cut, he had a shit of a day, missed time cut by 2 min, but lost about 5min when he punctured and there was no support vehicles to give him a wheel, some totally random dude driving along the road hooked him up a spare, and the judge still cut him and his group. was pretty stupid really, considering they let in aussie pete dawson the previous day and he came in on his own and had just been dropped.

today we started at our sponsors home, right out of the winery, and it was blowing its tits off
straight away as soon as the flag dropped it split to bits, i wasnt in amazing position but managed to go from the second group and into the first of about 15 before it went completely balls out.
once i got there the hammer dropped, trent lowe from discovery had missed the move, and unibet and astana had their key guys in it, so off we went,we covered 52km in the first hour, and we never had a tailwind at all, it was mental, we ended up loosing a couple of guys who tried to sit on, it was basically impossible, it was easier to lap through than sit on as the wind was that strong as soon as you spent too much time out there you were toast.
me and guddy were there, and it was looking pretty good, 7 guys from the second group somehow made it across after an hour, god knows how, but stuey o’grady and trent lowe made it, and then we hit a cat 2 climb.
i lasted about halfway up it, and then just got spat, unibet were on the front setting tempo and i couldnt stay with it, the group split in half and guddy made it which was awesome, i settled into a rhythm on stueys wheel and all of a sudden, i looked up and he was 500metres up the road in the next group, i was like-what the fuck, and realised he got a pretty good bidon from the team car, so i said “buggar it” looked over my shoulder and bunny(team manager graham bunn) was right there in the car, so i got a bottle as well and got taken up to the group, just about tore the mechanics arm off who was giving me the bottle but made it all the same, then we just settled into a really cruisy tempo to get to the finish. made it over the 3rd cat climb easy enough and rolled towards the finish.
just before the finish though, we rolled past a pretty famous town-bonnydoon!!!!!!! for those that have seen the movie the castle, it all makes perfect sense. it was magic!!! “hows the serenity” calls came out alot and we all had a good laugh.
guddy finished with most of the unibet boys on another hard, windy and hilly day.
legs were quite good and i was happy with how i rode, i didnt feel out of my depth riding in the cross winds with the big boys, so was pretty stoked with that, just cant climb with them at all but being the biggest buggar there it was never going to happen. such is life!