Day 10 – Blenheim to Kaikoura – 128km

Day 10 – Blenheim to Kaikoura – 128km

Right then, here we are....the first big stage of the South Island, 128km from Blenheim to Kaikura along the coast road adjacent to the South Pacific Ocean.
Before we got to the coastal road however, there was the little matter of sorting out the KOM for the day, as we rolled out of the hotel, Gordo neutralized the first couple of km’s to allow us to get of Blenheim town.
We rolled nicely down to the road at about 33-34kph, until a couple of smaller attacks started to bring the speed up, these were neatly brought back until the big guns fired, Clas attacked like a rocket and was immediately chased by Steve, Petro, Pete O and a couple of others....Big E and I set off just a couple of seconds later and put in a massive sprint to try and bridge the gap, but they were seriously shifting....we were doing 52kph as it was, we got within about 15m but couldn’t quite get there.

I pretty much exploded at that point as the second wave came past, I pushed on at my own pace to try and salvage some of the climb a bit later on. The climb is a real power / sprinters climb, about 4km long, but not steep, averaged about 4%. About 1.5km from the top, Gordo gained and overtook, but didn’t pull away as fast, so i managed to glue myself to his wheel, we got past Rip and then I dropped off G’s wheel for about 20m, but I spotted the KOM finish (and the camera crew, hee hee...) and gave it everything to see if I could get there, Gordo could see me coming and we had a great sprint to the line, just got him with about 20m to spare (Green Jersey sprint power!), had to max my HR (178bpm) to do it and managed to cook my legs for the next 103km!
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Very tough, but enjoyable first 25km! The last 103km were spent pretty much chewing my handlebars in an effect to make forward progress. If wasn’t that my legs weren’t working, it was just a little windy.....how windy.....280watts = 18khp type of windy!!! Luckily I teamed up with Russ and Rob Q and they pretty much hauled me along for the last 50km – thanks guys :)

The Tour de France riders always say that the day after a rest tends to be the hardest, I definitely agree, the body almost gets that opportunity to slip into full recovery mode and shut down for a few days, bit of a snooze and then dinner and then another snooze, should see me back to normal tomorrow, hopefully with a little less wind!!!

Welcome to the South Island!

Tomorrow see's us heading from Kaikoura to Christchurch - 187km