It’s 5degress celcius, but with drizzling rain and nasty breeze the chill factor can’t be much above zero.  Perched at the 2618m above sea level somewhere deep in the Italian Alps you will find the Passo Gavia, also known as the Cima Coppi.  The penultimate mountain stage of this years Giro would pass over this mammoth Mountain during the 224km parcour also including the famous Mortirolo later in the stage.

So here I was in what would be the days grupetto of around 80 riders all battling to finish the Giro.  I’d just donned a vest, rain jackets, cap under the helmet, and picked up a musette from the team car with biddon of hot tea and some gels for the 50km descent ahead of us.

Then with 500m to go to the summit here are two hard kiwi blokes, frezzing their arses off waving a black flag with the silver fern on it.  I didn’t even have the energy to acknowledge them at the time but, damm fellas big ups.  All I could think was now thats ‘dedication’ if I’ve ever seen it.  Craig an Glen had been following the race with their partners all the way from Palermo to Milan, but this effort really took the cake.

So I would just like to say thanks to all of you including Kyle Rika and Teresa who joined team along the way, you guys really helped make some of those long days seem a lot brighter.

Below is a pick of Kyle, Glen, Craig, Grom (Slipsteam mechanic) and me at our hotel on the second to last night of the tour.

Cheers team.