UCI Women's Tour of NZ – Waking up the legs for summer…
It's hard going transferring from a winter in the UK sitting around freezing every day to the 'down under' sunshine sitting balmy in the 20's, and if there was anything I noticed consistently in this tour it was the change in temperature and how my body reacted.
I'm pretty happy with how things went. I’ve spent the last 7 months doing 95% base and was stoked to be in a position with a enough core fitness to be able to compete in the tour and not be struggling off the back. This was my first road race of any kind in 7 months and I knew it was going to take a few days to find my feet. It will be great to put the 'icing on the cake' around June/July after a few months of road racing in the States/Europe and actually enter stage races with some intervals and speed work in my legs.
This tour is the biggest women's tour in Australia/NZ and numbers this year were big with women vying for a spot in the Commonwealth games and World champs team. It was awesome to see such a classy field with riders who have had podium finishes at World Cups/World Championship events and makes you realise just how good you have to be if you want to reach the top. The USA national team really made their presence felt throughout this tour with Shelly Evans hammering through stage after stage. Every time you went to the front of the bunch the entire USA Squad were there controlling the race. They rode an awesome tactical/team race for Shelley.
Stage one 95km - Martinborough to Masterton
Apart from concerns that our bus transporting us to stage one would actually make it (it had to stop half way up the Rimutuka's for the engine to cool down- dear god..) I got off to a pretty swinging start. 110 women lined up and for the first 20 km it was pretty cruisy. So much so that we got yelled at by the lead car 'If you girls don't start racing properly soon, well cancel this whole tour'. I felt like yelling back 'Hey man, we have 5 days to get through along with 450km....give us a break..'.
Things heated up with the first major climb at 5Okm where the bunch twiddled down to 60 or so riders, this was when I noticed how much water I was going through. I had already been through 2 bottles and didn't have any back up. At 70km we hit the 'WALL'. My water was all finished, now my legs were cramping and even my arm. Now the WALL is exactly what it sounds like a horrible hellish WALL. You are reduced to your 27 and struggling big time, lungs yelling out 'Stop, stop I can't take this anymore' and it just drags on and on. I found myself in no mans land for about 2 minutes. I just couldn't quite get on the front bunch and was sitting just in front of the chasing girls, luckily this is when a support car came past and hallelujah there was the water I was so badly in need of. The chasing bunch caught me at the top and we started the massive descent into Masterton. I think it was about 10km of pure down hill. I loved it. Our bunch came in 5-6 minutes behind the lead group fighting it out for the last top 6o places. At the end I pedalled as fast as I could to find yet another bottle of water - this would be my 4th.
Stage two 112km – Masterton to Palmerston North
The bunch mainly stayed together until the Piahuatua track where you could see a trial of riders in the hurt box. I was telling people on the start line 'Oh the climb isn't that bad...really nothing like the wall', but when we got there I started re-thinking that statement. I ended up in another chasing group finishing 3.5 minutes behind the winner (Shelley Evans) in 65th place.
Stage three 86km - Palmerston North circuit
This was hard, fast and dodgy. Around 80 women jostled for positions on a undulating circuit around Palmerston North with a chasing bunch 5 minutes back. I saw so many nearly fatal accidents. It was safer to ride on the outside of the bunch than anywhere else and I was just pleased to make it to the end in one piece. 5 girls got up the road in a break including NZ riders Yvette Hill-Willis, Gayle Brownlee and Sia Svensdon. Our bunch left it to the very last minute to catch them and we only just got them on the line. The sprint was super sketchy motoring up to somewhere in the 50's. I rolled in around 56th place.
Stage four 11km Time trial - Palmerston North
I had a big advantage for the time trail as it headed right around my dad's place at Massey University and is a circuit I have done a million times. It was an unusual time trial because it was soo hilly and for me this was a definite bonus. What I was really surprised by was to pull out my best placing in the whole tour, which for me is practically unheard of for time trailing, rolling in at 43rd place right between two members of the NZ road squad. It looks like a year of time trial practice is actually starting to pay off. My team mate Kerri-Anne Torckler also had a great time trial finishing 30th, which made up for all the bad luck she had in the first stage. I also want to take the chance to thank my 'mystery' fan club that had a banner up for me at the top of Old West Road – Awesome job! Thanks! The banner was soo cool and helped to keep me motoring through.
Stage five 112km - Palmerston North to Masterton
In general I wasn't very pleased with my race. The bunch stayed together until we hit the Piahuatua track again where there was a crash and I think I may have ridden over someone's arm - sorry. I ended up doing a little cyclocross to avoid getting caught up in the stack, but it wasn't pretty.
The bunch split after an attack was made at the first major bend and I just didn't have the legs. Our group could see the lead bunch about 40 seconds in front all the way to the top but I descended badly down the other side and lost any chance of getting back on. Our chasing bunch consisted of about 11 riders and we spent the next 2.5 hours lapping it out until the end. We ended up loosing 11 minutes on the lead bunch which is pretty bad. The only thing to do was to go for a good sprint finish and try and get my placing up a bit finishing 47th. Again Shelley Evans was there to take the win again.
Stage six Criterium - 1 hour + 3 laps
This turned into a bit of non-event for 80% of the riders. The criterium was sooo short (850 metres) and within 10 minutes myself and 1/3 of the bunch were pulled out because we were too far down on the lead pack. I tried to get to the front of the bunch lining up but the rule was that teams were called to the front in order of overall placings, so unfortunately our team was called to the line third to last. By the first corner we were already way down on the field. Not a great way to end the tour but I have about 7 days of criterium racing in the States planned for later in the season so I have plenty of time to sort this out. Nice work from NZ rider Joanne Kiewanoski who finished 3rd.
All up the tour gave me a great kick start for the States/Europe road season and my only frustrations with the week was my bout of insomnia, the results getting mucked up and all the crashes that happened. 110 women started the tour and only 78 finished. On day 4 ¼ of the pack seemed to have some type of massive bandage on their arms or legs.
My insomnia was irritating to say the least. I think the heat just turned me into a night owl, along with my body clock still set on UK time. On average I think I only got about 5hrs sleep a night. I hope it never happens again. On a good note I managed to make it in with a top 50 finish (48th place) and it was great to see my hill climbing coming along since France in 2009 where I was hanging on for dear life.
One thing that did concern me about the tour and women’s cycling in general was seeing how skinny some of the riders were looking. I realise that you need to keep trim and be careful with your diet but I definitely saw some riders that I would consider to be bordering on anorexic/bulimic and I just think it’s so sad that this happens in a sport where the whole reason you got into it was because you had a passion for bikes. I can understand why it happens with the pressure of wanting to win and coaches telling riders they need to ‘tone up’ but it’s just SO WRONG and so dangerous to the body and if writing this helps someone re-think their eating habits then I will feel like I have done something useful.
Tragically on the last day of the tour there was a massive earthquake in Chile where the organiser of the tour (Jorge Scandoval’s) family are based. Jorge is trying to raise funds for his family members that have been affected by the quake and if you want to donate money please see this link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3581003&id=696823019&ref=nf&fbid=3...
94238019#!/photo.php?pid=3581000&id=696823019&ref=nf&fbid=330794198019
Big thanks as always have to got out to my sponsors and the following people who made the week so much fun:
Kerri-Ann Torckler and family - Our team was a made up composite team and Kerri and her family totally sorted us out for the whole tour making sure we had food, spare bottles and a support car. It is really stressful racing without this support and it was GREATLY APPRECIATED.
READY SET GO JAPAN - It was so cool to catch up with Mutsumi and the team again. I am gutted I didn't get to join them for the tour, but seeing them was better than nothing. Mutsumi thanks for your offer of assistance throughout the races.
Also thanks to:
Penny Farthing Cycles, Pedal Pushers and family, friends and race organisers.
Going back to NZ also gave me the chance to stop in and see some of my sponsors/associates. I had a great couple of days with Carncot School www.carncot.school.nz and the Queen Margaret College Sports Academy www.qmc.school.nz where I had the chance to talk to the girls about my last 8 years of racing. There are a lot of talented young women coming through from both these schools so it will be exciting to hear their progress over the next few years. I also got to stop in and meet the crew at Apres Velo in Sydney. The creativity and funky designs coming out from these guys are phenomenal. It's worth checking out their website for a sneak peak for 2010 www.apresvelo.com
And the best way to finish a week of hard racing – head to the beach. I flew straight to Sydney to hang out with my brother and work on my pasty white legs. To go swimming and feel warm in the water seems rare but Sydney was amazing. It was a bad shock to the system arriving back in Oxford last Friday to 5 degrees : (
Full results are listed here: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/womens-tour-of-new-zealand-2-2
Plus there are photos in the gallery.
