Central Hawke's Bay cyclists are about to ride nearly 700km in seven days on the South Island leg of the Tour of NZ to raise funds for St John Ambulance.
CHB riders Tim Mackie, Dean Gough and Doug Roberts are linking up with their Vero's Heroes teammates, Havelock North's Marcus Smith and Palmerston North's Kelvin McDowell, for the tour which starts at Five Rivers, south of Queenstown.
This year's fourth Tour of New Zealand begins on April 1, with riders setting off simultaneously on the 656km North Island leg and 637km South Island leg and finishing together eight days later at the Beehive in Wellington, where they compete in a fun teams' criterium event.
The tour is run every second year, and entries are limited to 200 riders in each island. More than $750,000 has been raised for various charities from the previous three tours.
At the last Tour of NZ held in 2015 Mackie, Gough and Smith rode the North Island leg with another CHB cyclist Ross Pepper in a Vero's and Villains four-rider team that raised $1500 for St John in CHB.
Team spokesman Tim Mackie said that apart from one lost pedal, the four-rider team fared pretty well back in 2015, despite riding nearly 700km over seven gruelling days,
But like the North Island course, he predicted the impending South Island leg would be no easy stroll for the new five-rider team.