Stop the press – Last night I posted tales of a massive day on the bike, only to collapse into bed in agony, to then find that a photo had come through that encapsulated my suffering, whilst you can’t see the cunty wind I battled against, you should be able to get the drift from this shot, possibly the best shot I have ever had from a race:

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Giro, Oakley, Rapha and RIVET all combining to make things look a lot more PRO than they really are!

This was before the sprint point, so still a lot of solo time was ahead… Anyway, enough about me and yesterday, on to day 4! How best to sum up day 4? Well, I am sure this line has been used before and in another context, but, lets just say that solo breakaway’s are a bit like masterbation, at the end of the day you are only fucking yourself and this is pretty much what transpired for me today!

Whilst on paper today was the ‘easiest’ day at ‘only’ 100km’s, straight away I could tell my legs were about as useful as a Corporate Executive at an Innovation Expo… It was going to be a tricky day. Still, thankfully the Met Service had it massively wrong and there was no rain about, blue skies and dare I say it, even perhaps a little bit warm? All set to roll out towards stage 1 for the day, time to line the boys up for the mandatory start shot:

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Basically lining up to attack like rabid wolves

Yes, Rivet now has quite a reputation for attacking… And attacking… and when no one wants us to, to attack again. Fuck this GC business, I have introduced the boys to the Asia style spider monkey approach to bike racing, like firing missile relentless up the road until something sticks, here we are drawing straws for the batting order for today:

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Logan commenting that the stripes make him look fat…

The plan was to attack the field again and then make sure we got the green sprint points for Pete, similar to yesterday. Again, we peppered the front of the race with attack after attack and as predicted, by about number 4 we were allowed a man up the road – Step up and take a bow Rueben, darting away and getting a niiiiice break going. However he wasn’t solo for long, with the Neo Pro Benchmark Beast deciding he would nip across and join him.

Ruebs kept it rolling with the beast until he was warned “If you try and sprint me at the sprint point, I will drop the hammer on you and leave you here”, never one to unrivet, Rueben had a crack at Sprint point 2 and then duly found himself riding solo for the rest of the stage, the Beast true to his word. Here they are post stage, sharing a No Frills muesli bar, yummy:

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“Did I mention I am basically pro? I can tell people where I am going to vaporise them, just like Phil Gilbert”

In the chasing pack, we worked with the Capital team to peg the gap, with a nice pace line flowing to gobble up the miles, which was a good thing as I was resembling a turd on a bike basically… Not a thrilling prospect with today having a sting in the tail. Next up was a 33km neutral ride to the start of the TT… Slow and sore, but decent views. Let the classic Dirty Nomad scenery roll, roll:

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Its another one lane bridge…

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Towards the mountains… dread filling the legs…

Like the fat mother hen I resembled today, we tucked the boys in for the spin to the TT, always key to keep your weapons dry and primed:

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GV already starting to think about tearing the balls and anything else he found down there off the TT

Angus’ iPhone photo taking skills have improved 1000% over last night, good shooting son, the classic mountain photo:

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What you can’t see here is the DN violating the tranquility with epic GAS, a Gel to far…

After a quick coke break – It was time to start the TT… Basically, we went up here, 6.5kms at an average of 12%:

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Pretty much the LAST thing that I felt like doing today…

First of all – the boys had a great run, GV pulled out an absolute freak show effort to come 2nd on the stage with a 21.40! He was on a blinder, a total ambush out of the box of magical Italian tricks! We also had Logan in the Top 10, with the rest of the lads knocking on the door.

Me? Well, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and deliver the WORST TT and Hillclimbing effort of my life… I realised 1/4 of the way up that I wasn’t actually racing the stage, I was really just riding to the finish and the hotel. I was utterly fucked… It was like I didn’t have any legs, or a heart rate that could go over 140 BPM. How hard was the TT? Check this out:

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How its done – GV out of a bowl of rice beasting it to pieces with a full Italian effort

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Weapons going full gas – Angus and Logan getting into their work and smashing up a 14% section

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How NOT to do it – The Nomad thinking about a Zig Zag and regretting last nights Maccas

I crawled up, essentially a cross between a gimp and a loose stool, eventually sitting up to give Ruebs a tow to the summit, riding down to Arthurs and the hotel with the bitter taste of disgust in my mouth at how horrendously I grovelled up the climb. Still, it was time to replace that taste with the sweet combo of Beer and 4 to 5 Sauosages in bread, fuck yeah:

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Ben won the contest for having the most number of sausages in his mouth at once

Key thing about getting to Arthurs Pass, you need to keep an eye on your shit, the wildlife here is fierce:

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“Arggg… Fuck I am going to eat that Garmin…”

Legs are now so munted and sore that I busted Angus resorting to some weird grass based meditation and ball stroking in an attempt to try and recover from the massacre:

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Feels… So… good…

Or perhaps its his reaction to our accommodation for tonight… Lets just say its the most ‘basic’ so far, this certainly is one way to take the Bromance to the next level, we can only just fit in our bags (not to be confused with Sacs):

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We’re either twin 8 year old boys, or we have mistakenly been put into the broom cupboard (Note – I did not call it a closet)

Still, no complaints about the views or the weather – Fuck yeah, go NZ:

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The hobbits are close by

On to the final day tomorrow (thank fuck), 126km’s back to Christchurch and the finish… My legs have confirmed that they are mashed, so tomorrow could be interesting – Especially as we need to keep the Rivet record alive by sending another person up the road in a massive long range attack!

2 Responses

  1. DRRU Monday | Dirty Nomad – Roaming, Riding and excess baggage charges

    […] At the opposite end of the scale now, for a total contrast and a flash back to last year, this little video from 5 Passes has recently come out. If you like road riding, travel, riding as a team and above all, scenery – Then this is a race for you and your crew to have on the list at some stage. There may be a brief shot at the 3.26 mark of some bearded guy pulling along the Rivet Racing train, heading to the dreaded Arthurs Pass TT: […]

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