Hi all

Well I’ve finally made it back online here it Italy, it has been a real struggle to find any sort of connection as we have been touring up from the south of the country, but here in the little coastal city of Pesaro things seem a lot more civilized.

The first 9 days of continuous racing were pretty relentless but after yesterdays recovery day things have settled down a bit. It has been a real journey so far and by that I mean, by bike, bus, boat and also the journey of each individual stage as we have made our way from the south of Sicily to halfway up the mainland of Italy.

There has been moments along the way were I have been asking my self is this really what I dreamed of doing for all those years as a young fella hacking around the roads of the Waikato, as I was crammed into a ferry for 3hrs after a 200km stage and arriving at the next hotel at 11pm at night with just time to eat and straight to bed. Then there have been times like stage 9, with time for a quick espresso in the sun at the tour village with some fellow anglo riders, before we rolled out of the start“piano” (that’s nice and easy) true Italian style and spent the first few hours of racing with the heart rate not rising much higher than it would for a stole in the park. That is tour life for you though, it is full of extremes.

After a 400km transfer across the country on Sunday night, yesterdays rest day was spent fairly relaxed as you can imagine. After a quiet ride over the TT course it was back for lunch, a wee siesta and then massage. Though in the afternoon the rain started to fall and didn’t back off until this morning, but it didn’t go away so the TT course was made quite tricky with slick roads.

Today my objective was to just ride steady with out going into the red zone at all but at the same time stay well clear of the time limit. It was easier said than done though as we did over 700m of climbing in just 39km. The organisers do like making things difficult here though, with a nice little 14%, 400m climb on wet cobbles to the finish it was in true Giro style.

Well even though times we have been racing damm hard so far there is always time for a laugh in the bunch now and again, and on stage 9 Bradley Wiggins gave us all a good chuckle. As we had just past the 50km mark which signals the start of feeding for the day, each team will send a rider or two back to the team car for bottles.  As one of the Cofidis (former team of Wiggins) riders proceeded to do his job and bring a bottle back for team mate Yann Huget, who was sitting on the right hand side of the bunch at the time as his team mate came up on the left, Bradley offered to pass the bottle across to him. Though as he took the bottle he threw it directly over Yann’s head into a field, and for just one moment the look on Yann’s face was hilarious. As all us riders following behind had a great chuckle which lifted the thought of the 175km we still had to go for the time being. Yann did get another bottle however so he didn’t go thirsty.

Well it’s about time to graze again and fuel up for tomorrows very tough looking stage as we make our way from Urbania to Cesena over some very steep climbs on small roads.

I would like to say a quick thanks to Glen an his crew from NZ, who have been out on the course waving the NZ flag proudly, it has been great inspiration for me while I battle my way through the tour.  With a lot of riders mentioning to me also how it is so cool to get support like that so far from home.  Plus to all of you who have left comments as well thanks very much I really enjoy reading them.

Here are some pics below from the past week: Room mate Jussi feet up skins on relaxing (this is how you spend your evenings on tour), the tour bible everything you need to know even if you don’t want to!, Jussi getting some extra recovery for his legs in the bus on a long transfer, traveling in bus (done a lot of it so far), me heading to the bus before stage 8 after staying at a ski station in the mountains, me swamped my a group of Italian kids after dinner one night, and the mechanics working hard in the rain.

Thanks for reading, keep a look out for more soon.

Cya Tim