Well today was definitely a better day but I wouldn’t have known it on the drive from Invercargill to Winton.  Unlike yesterday with jokes about grizzly bears, this morning the mood was fairly sombre and the jokes were a little half hearted.  The rain throughout the night and this morning while we were loading the van had done little to improve moods either.  However, almost as soon as we had left Invercargill the skies lightened, by the time we reached Winton the roads were completely dry and the sun was out.

The one constant of the week was still there – the wind.  Today was going to be hard because of the direction we were taking – north-west – which meant riding into a head or a cross wind for the whole 163 kms to Te Anau.  And so it proved.  As soon as the flag was dropped just outside Winton, the pace was on.  Grover and Floyd were near the front and Grover attacked pretty early on, knowing that a left turn was coming up.  It actually came up about 5 kms later but it was enough to cause the first split of the day and set up the break that counted.  And more importantly Floyd was in that break.

The group was about 15 strong and worked away first at a 30 second lead and then a minute.  It seemed to stay at a minute for ages, as the teams of the major contenders were managing to stop the gap from getting any bigger.  But at some point the rubber band snapped and the next time we got an update from Tour Radio the gap was up to 2 minutes.  So this was the break that was going to succeed.  It had the 3 remaining Colourplus riders in the break, Marc Ryan, Jesse Sergent and Logan Hutchings, as well as Heath Blackgrove and his Zokeepers Cycle Surgery team mate Sam Bewley and two Bici Vida riders. 

In the team van we were stuck behind the main peloton.  The commissaries wouldn’t let us through to cover the break until the gap had opened to a point where it was safe for vehicles to move across.  So we waited until after the 50 km mark, when we were allowed to feed our riders.  Unfortunately we had lost all radio contact with Tour Radio and so had to relay messages through one of the other teams in order to get permission to feed our riders and then move forward to feed Floyd in the break.   Which we eventually did.

Chatting to the lads after the race, Nico and Jamie both said they saw me smiling as we passed the main bunch on our way up to the sharp end of the race.  That had never happened before and I do have to confess that I was pretty chuffed.  So Jane hammered the old diesel HiAce up to the break to hand Floyd a bottle.

Then we had to park on the side of the road until the main bunch went past, so that we could do it all over again.  The next feeding opportunity came about half an hour later by which time we had covered almost 90 kms.  We moved up to give Jamie a bottle, not that he was that thirsty, and carried on up to the break where we stayed for the rest of the race.  We managed to get some water and gels to Floyd around the 100 k mark, about 10 kms before Blackmount Hill.

We watched as the group of 15 got whittled down to 13 with two of the bigger riders getting tailed off on the climb.  Over the top and fast descent saw Chris Macic rejoin the group, only to lose contact again another 5 kms further on.

From then on it was a case of sitting in the small convoy that followed the lead group as we covered the next 50 kms to Te Anau. Being up the front made no improvement to our radio communications.  Nor did we have mobile phone coverage so my great idea of using the iPhone to get access to the Tour of Southland website commentary didn’t work.  So we had to rely on what we could see and the good graces of the Bici Vida team van to tell us what was happening in terms of the gap to the main bunch and, as we learnt later, the small chasing group that contained Jack Bauer, the wearer of the yellow jersey. 

There must have been some attacks on the flat roads alongside Lake Te Anau as Sam Bewley and Jesse Sergent got dropped, having done a sterling job for their team leaders in the break.  This meant that the lead group was down to 10 or 11 by the time we got to Manapouri.

At that point Scott was doing calculations that told us that, unless the chasing group could ride at 60kph into a head wind for the next 10 kms, the break would stay away.  The tension increased as we realised that Floyd’s chances were getting better but the tension subsided we closer we got to the finish line, as we knew that Floyd’s chances of a win were slipping away, especially with Alex Ray and Patrick Bevin in the bunch.  And so it turned out with Bevin taking the stage and retaining his lead in the sprint jersey

Still Floyd gave it a good crack and moved up 9 places on GC to 14th overall, making us all a lot happier than we had been in the morning.  I could tell Floyd had got some motivation back after the disappointments of the crashes, broken bikes and stupid riding earlier in the week, when I saw him sitting in the van studying the GC sheet to see how much of an improvement he had made and how much further he could climb.

Nico and Grover arrived in the main bunch, with Jamie not far behind, followed in by our brace trooper JD.

Having arrived in Te Anau in the early afternoon we had time to check into our motel and relax for a bit.  We even managed to see the amazing Fiordland on Film at the local cinema before a carbo-loading dinner at the local Italian restaurant.

Tomorrow is the last day but given that the gap between 1st and 2nd is only 11 seconds, it will definitely not be easy.  And if the nor’ westerly continues to blow; it will be very, very fast right from the gun.

Watch this space to see what happened.