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

stage 7

well last night sucked. i was woken up with a screaming sore guts and terrible gut cramps, and following a few quick runs to the loo i was still in the box. i slept buggar all and finally managed to drift off at about 5ish, only to be woken at 6 bleary eyed and grumpy for breakfast. today on the bike was going to be serious survival mode.

i managed to eat 2 pieces of bagguete with jam, and thats all i could stomach, probably more the fact i absolutely 100% am over bread. i hate the shit. its all we eat here, breakfast, lunch and dinner. HATE it. bread bread bread. anyways today was the longest single stage of the tour, and was meant to be nice and flat all the way down the coast with two cat 4 climbs near the end.

i gingerly climbed onto my bike and we started the stage, and it pretty much went nuts for the first hour and a half again, and it wasnt flat, there were some dirty steep bergs thrown in. finally a move went and the aussie and japanese team set tempo for the last 60km, and i was feeling like rubbish. forcing down a few gels, and trying to suck water down but it was hurting my gut. they also fed me some pretty strong syrup bottles, which got thrown straight back at them and exchanged for water. i was last man on the back of the bunch over the catergorised climbs but gritted in and finished in the bunch completely reamed by the end.

 stage 8

today i felt a little bit better and my appetite had returned a little bit, today looked relatively easy, one cat 4 climb early on, and a big cat 1 sucker with about 40km to go, so all i had to do was make it to the bottom of the cat 1 with the bunch and time cut wouldnt be an issue.

i didnt feel too bad and actually made it 3/4 of the way up the climb with the front group so i was quite happy, made it into a nice wee group and bombed the decent. it was actually the hardest part of the race for me cause it was the dodgiest decent ive ever done in my life. i was 2nd wheel going into one corner and ran in way too hot, just made it through and heard a massive crash behind me as 4 guys followed my line in and cooked it up and went over the bank. WHOOPS!! rolled into the finish and was stoked to tick off another day, especially feeling so average.

 stage 9 (split stage day)

well i actually managed to win one today, and by god was i relieved that it finally happened.

my stomach settled down overnight and woke up feeling pretty good, i checked my seat this morning and found that due to all the rough roads it had slipped right back on the rails by about 4cm, so fixed that and man what a difference, actually could put some gas down on the climbs!

i was trying to be aggressive today and get in the moves, the stage was only 75km long so didnt have alot of time if you missed it. it was that fast it was still together with 15km to go, id tried a few attacks which came to nothing, then i just buried it up a small climb, turned round, had a gap, 4 guys came over with 10km to go and that was that, managed to get them all in the sprint for the line and was one happy camper. more so that i’d battled through with a crook guts and not pulled the pin like i really wanted to. this race is pretty important part of the prep for sun tour/southland/oceanias that i needed to get it all in the legs, so now the pressure is off, the team is happy, the boys are stoked and i made up for fucking up the other stage where i got 2nd. good times.

 stage 10

uphill time trial on a gravel goat track in the afternoon

it was 8km long and shit the whole way. one bit was that steep and the gravel and rocks were that loose that i tried to ride up it, hit a rock which turned my front wheel and i had to unclip not to crash, and WALK up the steep bit until i could get going again and clip in. i was mega embarrassed at walking, ive never had to in a race anywhere before. i think i pretty much got last place by quite a bit but they werent imposing time cut on the stage so really didnt have to try, and it wasnt like i was going to get anywhere by smashing myself into the ground and going from 50th to 40th. i got to the top, and it turns out pretty much most people crashed or had to walk up that bit. even more impressive was the wee japanese guy that won took 17min or so out of me in 8.6km hahaha whoops, i think i took the foot off the gas a wee bit too much. i knew the climb was going to be steep when i passed diggers and trucks for the mine at the bottom that had chains on their wheels to help with grip on the way up.anyways 2 stages tomorrow to have a crack at and i didnt touch the legs up this avo so hopefully will try get in another couple of moves and see what comes of it.

 i also had the weirdest drug test today, Felicia BALLANGER (google the name if you havnt heard it, absolute french track cycling legend) walked up to me at the top of the climb and presented me with a clipboard

“thanks, whats this” i said

“you have now must take control”

i looked at the form for a bit, which was all in french and she said again

“you sign here, come for control”

then i understood what she was on about, i was needed for a doping control, somewhere, so i signed the form, and she just left.

so i was standing on the top of the hill, wondering what the hell had just gone on, and looked at logan who said

“what the f=*% was that?”

“im not sure, i think i have to go to a control, but i dont know”

“wheres your minder?”

“again, i dont know”

so the french way of doping control is very weird, i was informed i had to go to control, at an undisclosed location written in french, without anyone watching me at all, and i had one hour to do whatever the hell i wanted, before i had to turn up at this random location somewhere.

i walked past the aussie team and had a wee chat to them, and they asked the same question “where is your minder so you dont go do naughty things” it was really really weird.

in the end i went to this chick called jenny, who spoke english and asked her to help me out, she went and found ballanger, and she told me that i could go down the hill with them if i wanted or get myself down. so i jumped in the car with her, and some guy that also didnt speak any english for the trip down the hill.(i thought id i stay with her, that way i couldnt miss the control at all)

it turns out the guy who was driving thought he was sebastian loebs brother, and rally drove down the hill. i actually thought a few times we were going to go off the edge.

he turned round to me at one point and smiled and said  “zis is not my car, it iz ze ‘ire car” which instilled me with even more confidence. occasionally when he would get the car sliding, ballanger would let out a gasp, or a “bravo”

we ended up making it down the hill in one piece, but i was that scared any piss i had to put in a bottle had disappeared completely with my nerves. filled out the forms and stuff and did the test, the guy didnt even watch me piss, just stood at the door of the toilet block and shouted “you must make 90mls, 90mls, 90mls”

yeah it was a weird experience. the french are just different

Well where to begin

Its been an interesting few days here in New Caledonia , and im sure theres more to follow.

To start off im in a team with logan hutchings, brad carter and peter rennie. Ive never met brad or pete before but they seem like pretty cool kids.

Its been funny rooming with the younger guys brad and pete, both are quite green when it comes to travel and getting yourself through a tour without to much hassle.

The first laugh I had was watching brad build his bike on his bed at this nice resort we stayed in for the first 3 days, I just sorta shook my head and smiled, and told him maybe the balcony would probably be a bit of a better place if we ever wanted to stay in the same resort for the last night of the tour instead of the street, then pete decided to lay his bike chain side down on the hotels nice plush rug right in the middle of reception, haha that was actually one to behold, also was the look of the receptionist on duty at the time. Im pretty sure ive bigger dickhead things when I was away at that age, hell I still do dickhead things now, but I feel old telling the boys to try limit the grease marks everywhere, Christ im only 26!

The tour kicked off in torrential pissing island rain with a rude shock, a 15km ttt, with no aero bars or anything like that. We actually surprised ourselves and got 5^th, which wasn’t to bad considering we couldn’t really be bothered trying to warm up in the rain, tell you what though, my ass was in a world of pain, 15km going at it on the drops is not the best way to start the tour, my legs ached something shocking!

Stage 1

This was a 76km race round a circuit with a 3^rd cat climb to be repeated 3 times, I went up the road early on to try get brad over to the early move, and he got there 3^rd time up the climb with the yellow jersey from the morning, while I quite happily called it a day and went back to the bunch and cruised into the finish, both brad and pete made the front group which was mint, as both want to have a good crack in the U23 jersey.

Stage 2

Today was 104km with quite a few small climbs littered about the place and a cat 3 climb 40km in, so all I though I had to do was make it over that and I would be sweet. Well I made it over that pretty comfy then got bored with about 50km to go, so started attacking in the cross winds, and a group of 5 of us got away. We stayed away until the finish, and after being attacked and counter attacked by the new Caledonians in the break for the last 10km I ended up 2^nd on the stage, I was wrecked though, none of the new Caledonians would bring each other back so if one attacked I had to chase. All in all pretty happy but would have been good to win the dam thing!

Stage 3

We had a hard day today, climbs all over the shop with 3 catergorised climbs back to back at the end of the stage plus heaps of wind. Pete got up the road in the early move, while back in the bunch it was absolute carnage, as the tour leaders team rode like idiots and didn’t defend the jersey so the first hour and a half were pretty much an attack fest. Safely finished in the bunch again so was pretty stoked with that, found my climbing legs today somehow and made it over all the climbs without too much drama, hell even I was surprised I made it over with the bunch.

Its about time I think I should mention where we are staying tonight and the awesome brown water showers we had when we finished the stage. I think we are either at a school or army barracks, but the water was brown, and the beds, well, don’t have much bedding apart from a sheet. Getting back to basics I guess!!!

Its actually been quite cool being here, the racing is hard which is what I needed, and we are getting looked after pretty well, brad suffered a bit today, as he got the good old French syrup in his drink bottles (which is basically flavoured sugar water-world famous in france) and he got the mix a bit wrong and got the major “syrup gut” im pretty sure he wont be making that mistake again tomorrow. The funniest thing ive seen all day was him trying to make a piece of paper into a funnel, so he could pour protein powder into his drink bottle. He just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t roll the thing into any form of funnel or cone and he tried for about 10 minutes haha, he had the boys in absolute stitches, peter went and showed him how to do it, then brad said “well, I hate this origami shit anyways” haha class.

Our bikes are also getting the French treatment, which is basically coat everything in oil, and you’ll be ok. I watched the process this morning, and just laughed. I think my chain has motor oil on it, that thick that I have oil spray on my shoes and all over my bike, next was the cables with the same stuff, then I had to look away as the sprayed WD40 pretty much all over my brake callipers, logan couldn’t watch either, the first 5km this morning were interesting when I tried to stop, that’s for sure. Actually I think if my bike were to end up anywhere near the ocean it would be classified and ecological disaster, as numerous sea and bird life would choke on the oil slick coming off my rig. Sigh maybe ill tell them to tone the oil down tomorrow, we have a 12km dirt hill to climb at the finish up to a mine or something, and I really don’t need to be carrying a ton of dust up their with me stuck to all the oil ive got on-board haha

Stage 4

Well it kicked off hard and fast today, the bunch got split up and regrouped at least a dozen times before a group of about 15-20 guys got away and the guys set tempo to the bottom of the 12km dirt climb that was ranked whores catergory., things were going ok right up until I started climbing, then I had what can only be described as a mini nuclear meltdown on the side of the hill, in places on the climb it was over 30 deg and I couldn’t get a rhythm going on the gravel, and I got cooked up and felt generally worse for wear. I made it to the top though, and was pretty stoked to get there, it was one of the longest 12km of my life. The drama didn’t stop there, as we left the top of the mountain in the wagon to take us to the accommodation for the night, we ended up getting completely lost, and what should have been a 37km journey, took us 2.5 hours in the sweltering heat in a packed van, with a local new cale guy driving us all over the island getting lost. This tour is turning into a very badly made series of survivor I think. Its just theres no million dollar prize at the end of the tour for the best survivor.

Stage 5

This stage has given me nightmares since I saw it in the books at the start of the tour. We started straight into a cat 2 climb, followed by a hell of a lot more climbs, then a cat one climb, then a cat 4 climb in the first 40km, then a hell of a lot more climbs throughout the day. Well I did what only the biggest guy tour could do, and I went blocks, took another guy away with me but for whatever stupid reason the bunch just didn’t let go and we only had 30 seconds halfway up the climb. I hung on until halfway up the cat one climb before I started to get dropped, and then panicked as I thought I was the first one dropped and still had 80km of hills to go, I crested the top and looked back down the mountain, and I was fizzing, there were about 25 guys behind me!!! Brilliant I though, gruppeto time. And we all rolled the last 80km away pretty easily and made the time cut no worries. Theres not really much more I could’ve done on the stage, I went blocks, I tried, when it all fell to bits I made it to the finish, these days normally suck for me as its not a day I can really race on, its just plain survival, but today was nice as there were a lot more people in my position as well. Its quite funny, there were so many people in the gruppeto from different countries, and no one spoke the same language, but there was this massive neutral respect for each other, and with a few hand signals everyone got the gist of what was needed to be done, and big pats on the back when we made it. I guess you make a lot of friends in the back bunches, suffering together levels any man down to each others levels.

Stage 6

This survivor thing is fully kicking into swing, today had 6 catergorized climbs, with a few more sprinkled in just for a laugh. I was actually feeling good, and was climbing front bunch over the first 3 catergorised climbs and I thought I was on top of the world, then disaster struck. Right at the base of a cat 2 climb, I punctured. Not normally a big problem, but when you have to wait 6 min for your team car to give you a wheel it is. 6 whole god dam minutes. I was last man on the road by the time I got my wheel, so had to start my climb with the sag wagon right up my ass. All the fight and strong head I had disappeared somewhere in that 6 min I was sitting on the side of the road, watching cars drive past and not give me a wheel. I was very close to throwing my bike into the river, closely followed by the punctured wheel I was just about throwing at every team car that didn’t stop to give me a wheel. So I boxed on, and started catching a few people here and there, hit a massive cat one climb 30km before the end, that I reckon should have been ranked whores cat as well, caught a few people up there, then got to the top, and for whatever reason, was a gravel decent the whole way down the other side. I was in such a bad mood I think I still hit 85kph on the gravel decent, just didn’t care anymore. I had just caught the gruppeto on the flat with about 20km to go, and BOOM. Punctured my front wheel. Yeah it was a good survivor day, got motorpaced back up and finished the day, smiling somehow at how sometimes shit just happens, but you just gotta get on with it I guess. The finish was interesting though, there were fists flying in the front group and there was a massive argument going on which was good to see, the aussies were getting well stuck into the new Caledonians. Brilliant stuff!!