Most of us had a much better day today.  The sun came out, the wind dropped and the mood rose about 30 degrees above last night’s. 

The one primarily responsible for keeping spirits high was Floyd.  He’s “been there, done that” so many times that nothing seems to faze him – “Sure, yesterday was a bad day, and sure, most of the carnage was caused by riders using high profile rims in gale force winds, but, hey that’s bike racing”, said Floyd.

JD has had a bad run since we got to Invercargill but we have our fingers crossed that his curse is over.  He was the last rider to get his bike on Sunday (it had gone to Dunedin first); he got gapped on the TT in stage 1; he rode most of stage 2 in the small ring because of a shredded cable; and ended up with the worst cuts in the pile-up.  Today it was the deep gash in his forearm that got jarred on the heavy chip seal roads on the way to Gore; after 20 kms JD was consigned to the laughing bunch (although there weren’t too many smiles and not much small talk going on).  However, JD made it to the finish in one (sore) piece and somewhat philosophically said that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing that he had a quiet ride to Gore!

As for the others (including Jane, Scott and me in the team van) it was a GOOD day:  no punctures, no crashes and no real incidents (apart from my Garmin 705 flying off the dashboard and out the window – thankfully retrieved). 

Floyd had no problems with his new Scott  CR1 frame.  In fact I got the impression that he really liked it, so many thanks to Ryan Cull and the lads at Cycle Surgery for setting him up on that frame.

The race was 165 kms.  A group formed and stayed away for much of the race only to be caught by  the bunch with about 20 kms to go.  A new bunch formed almost immediately and stayed away to fight it out for the finish line honours.  The rest of the lads, JD excepted, rolled in with the bunch, happy to get through a comparatively easy day – if you can call a165 km race an easy day!

One of the other highlights of the day was the drive back to Invercargill from Gore: the sun was shining, the lads were relaxing in the back of the van refuelling and Floyd was telling stories from “the inside”.  I don’t think we realised just how nice this guy was.  When I had told Floyd that we had put “All For One, One For All” on the team jersey to signify what we were about, he said that suited him just fine and he would do what he could to fit in – he has done that in spades and really has become just one of the lads.

After getting back to the motel we called up the Tour doctor to have a look at Grover and Jamie, who was having difficulty breathing, and to check on JD and Nico’s wounds. Jules and Kirsty then took over rubbing out the aches and pains from the legs and other bruised body parts.  In the meantime Marcel cleaned and retuned the bikes, doing what he could to stretch the Pinarello to fit Grover.

And now we’re cooking a mountain of food for 12 people and then we’ll send the lads to bed (not that they need any encouragement) so that they can rest up and continue to recover until tomorrow’s double stage to Tuatapere and Winton.

Wayne