Rowing: Hamish Bond ditches Eric Murray for new challenge

Hamish Bond will ride in the Tour of Southland. Photo / Photosport

Olympic and world champion rower Hamish Bond will swap boat for bike when he takes on next month's Tour of Southland.

Bond, one half of the indomitable New Zealand men's pair with Eric Murray, will ride for the Vantage Windows & Doors team, which will include his brother Alistair and New Zealand professional cyclist Michael Torckler. The tour runs from October 30 to November 5 and is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.

"I don't have any expectations or ambitions in terms of cycling, and that's why it's such a luxury to come down," Bond said. "I'll be in good shape and good form by my standards, but there's no pressure, which is something that I've lived with since we stepped into the pair and started winning. Every race we put our winning record on the line and there's a lot of pressure associated with that, mainly from ourselves. I'm looking forward to being that underdog maverick that I haven't been able to be for eight or nine years."

It's not the first time Bond has competed in New Zealand's most prestigious stage race, which he'd previously rode as a 23-year-old in 2009.

"He's an elite athlete at the top of the game and this won't be a junket for him at all," Tour of Southland director Bruce Ross said. "It's great to see him place so much respect on this race and I know he's putting in a lot of training to be competitive."

While Bond finished 68th on general classification in 2009, more importantly he was part of the Zookeepers-Cycle Surgery team which claimed team classification honours, and helped Heath Blackgrove to take out the yellow jersey.

"I've always enjoyed cycling. I had a go at the tour in 2009 when we had just recently won our first world championship in the pair. I was still pretty green and I was trying to ride and row at the same time and I didn't really do either any justice," Bond said.

"It's fair to say I wasn't really prepared for Southland and I suffered really badly, so I wanted to come back and do it justice. I was in a team with some serious talent, of which I was seriously lacking, but they never made me feel that way and I've remained friends with the guys through to this day. I guess time has healed the scars in terms of suffering and my memory doesn't seem so bad.

"I had a couple of crashes which aren't great memories, but I did have a couple of days where I felt quite good and was able to contribute to the team. My greatest memory is just being out the back and having to survive in the crosswinds, riding in the gutter for kilometre after kilometre."

Bond and Murray have won 69 straight races in a streak which goes back to 2009, including back-to-back Olympic and eight world championship titles.

Bond said he never seriously thought about continuing his partnership with Murray on the bike.

"I don't know if Eric would make it up Bluff Hill, to be honest, even if he only started at the bottom," Bond said with a laugh. "We do a lot of cycling for cross-training and there wouldn't be too many stronger bike riders in the world that are Eric's size - but when the road starts going uphill he certainly notices it."