Havelock North's Marcus Smith(left) will join CHB riders Tim Mackie, Dean Gough and Doug Roberts for the South Island leg of the Tour of NZ. Photo / supplied
Havelock North's Marcus Smith(left) will join CHB riders Tim Mackie, Dean Gough and Doug Roberts for the South Island leg of the Tour of NZ. Photo / supplied
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 MarcusSmith 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.
Stage lengths varied from 65km to 130km and Mackie said the toughest stages would on days two and three when riders tackled the Crown Range and then high merino country.
The weather could prove as challenging as the course itself, Mackie said.
"Thankfully they've brought the race forward three weeks from the last one [in 2015]. A friend of mine from Taupo rode it and they got hypothermia for the first three days because it just snowed - and it could easily happen again in April because they've already had a snowfall down there."
To prepare for those potentially long, cold days in the saddle, Mackie said he and his teammates had been training for more than six months.
"You've got to keep at it. You're never going to ride 700km in seven days until you do the actual tour, but you've got to build up enough fat in the system.
Based on his experience of the North Island leg, Mackie predicted there would be teams of very talented club riders at the South Island event and some of the large corporates would enter multiple teams, which miraculously became stacked with stronger riders as the finish line drew nearer.
"But we have all agreed we are going to ride the whole thing together and stay together on the road for as long as possible. We aren't in it for the prizes, we are just there to ride and have fun and raise coin for the local St John Ambulance service," Mackie said.
People can donate to the team now by going to tourofnewzealand.co.nz and then searching under the fundraising tab for Vero's Heroes in the event race book.
