Team South - Day 0 - Fri April 13

Team South – Day 0 - Friday April 13

We three first stage riders arrived in Invercargill this afternoon from around the country – Sarah from Waikanae, Scott from Blueskin and Rod from Auckland.

The wind was ferociously strong, buffeting the car and tugging at the bike rack on the back as Shane drove Scott and Rod from Dunedin. It was heavily overcast with the occasional spit of rain. Sarah reckons her landing in Invercargill was the equal of anything at Wellington airport in a storm.

Thus, the Southland weather welcomed us to Invercargill and the start of the Tour of New Zealand. But the welcome from the race organisers at the Southland Velodrome was full-on warm and buzzing.

At the race briefing, overlooking the famous indoor track, there were some 80 of us riders with more expected later in the evening. And we’ve come from all over…including three teams from Hong Kong and one from China who were given a rousing welcome by the Kiwis present.

Team Hikurangi South will start with three riders tomorrow….but Scott has only just got stiches out of his thumb following a mishap chopping firewood – “autumn hand” as the malaise is known in Otago. He’s game for the full 139km tomorrow…but he’ll see how he goes.

Just in case he doesn’t go the distance, we need another rider because it is the third team member across the finish line each day whose time counts as the team’s stage time. Thus, the organisers asked a solo rider, Dave Holden, if he’d join us for the day as a spare. He willingly agreed…even before we offered him a stunningly distinctive Hikurangi team shirt.

We’re promised the storm will blow through over night…and a calm, pleasant day will greet us tomorrow. Of course it will!  And if it doesn’t? Let’s just hope for a ferociously strong tail wind.