Lately there has not been any mountain bike racing lately up here in the North Island so I turned to the road for a good warm up as I get closer to starting out on the NZ national season in February. The Hub Tour in Hawkes Bay just so happened to be on at the right time and have a good set of stages with a 6km time trial on Friday (prologue), 95km road race on Saturday morning, 50min crit on Saturday afternoon, and 95km road race on Sunday making for a good burn out.
The time trial went pretty well for my first solo effort finnishing in 26th, there wasnt anything too interesting about this stage, it was a straight flat road with two corners and was over for me in 7min 21 secs (apparently.. I think it was actually 8min 21 secs).
The next day we raced the first stage which was a good course with rolling hills and no flat spots apart from the finish straight and three laps to complete, for the first lap I was just trying to hold on and was struggling a bit with the temperature (it was hot), and pace, then found my legs in the second lap, then at the start of the 3rd lap I took a Mule Bar Cafe Cortado caffeine shot and notied it starting to kick in really well about 5min later. Unfortunately I had taken it a bit late and missed out on the break away earlier. Towards the end of the race I tried to assist in breakaways but we never got very far so had wait until the finish straight and came 3rd in the bunch sprint but 7th overall.
In the afternoon we had the 50min crit which was tough in the legs, I nearly got dropped a couple of times but managed to hold on and miss a pretty big crash, finishing in the bunch sprint 5secs down.
We had the last stage on Sunday morning which was another lap race, mostly flat but finished with a good climb and about 10km of undulating hills. for the first two laps there were a couple of attempts for a breakaway but the wind picked up and was coming straight at us on the main straight so all breakaways came back eventually. I tried a small attack on the last climb and was a bit bummed out to see the whole bunch stayed with me haha, then the top riders attacked and I just held on. The pack split and there were about 15 of us sprinting and attacking the last 10kms of the race which shattered me and I fiinshed in 11th and 2secs back. With that I finished in 17th over all the stages and am pretty happy, given my initial goal of a top 20.
The Hub Tour was an awesome introduction for me into road tours and was pretty fun as well. Big thanks to Ben and Steph Mchale for giving me a ride over, letting me stay with them, cooking me dinner, feeding me (Steph), and all the rest haha.
And to my sponsors Yeti, Adidas, Mule Bar, Endura, Outdoorsman, Wildlands, Roam industries.
Cheers
The time trial went pretty well for my first solo effort finnishing in 26th, there wasnt anything too interesting about this stage, it was a straight flat road with two corners and was over for me in 7min 21 secs (apparently.. I think it was actually 8min 21 secs).
The next day we raced the first stage which was a good course with rolling hills and no flat spots apart from the finish straight and three laps to complete, for the first lap I was just trying to hold on and was struggling a bit with the temperature (it was hot), and pace, then found my legs in the second lap, then at the start of the 3rd lap I took a Mule Bar Cafe Cortado caffeine shot and notied it starting to kick in really well about 5min later. Unfortunately I had taken it a bit late and missed out on the break away earlier. Towards the end of the race I tried to assist in breakaways but we never got very far so had wait until the finish straight and came 3rd in the bunch sprint but 7th overall.
In the afternoon we had the 50min crit which was tough in the legs, I nearly got dropped a couple of times but managed to hold on and miss a pretty big crash, finishing in the bunch sprint 5secs down.
We had the last stage on Sunday morning which was another lap race, mostly flat but finished with a good climb and about 10km of undulating hills. for the first two laps there were a couple of attempts for a breakaway but the wind picked up and was coming straight at us on the main straight so all breakaways came back eventually. I tried a small attack on the last climb and was a bit bummed out to see the whole bunch stayed with me haha, then the top riders attacked and I just held on. The pack split and there were about 15 of us sprinting and attacking the last 10kms of the race which shattered me and I fiinshed in 11th and 2secs back. With that I finished in 17th over all the stages and am pretty happy, given my initial goal of a top 20.
The Hub Tour was an awesome introduction for me into road tours and was pretty fun as well. Big thanks to Ben and Steph Mchale for giving me a ride over, letting me stay with them, cooking me dinner, feeding me (Steph), and all the rest haha.
And to my sponsors Yeti, Adidas, Mule Bar, Endura, Outdoorsman, Wildlands, Roam industries.
Cheers
