Now the men’s race… that evolved quite differently to the women’s. I didn’t get there in time to see the start, so stopped on my way to my viewing possie at the corner before the first climb started to watch the men go by on their second lap. Already the field was broken up… 2 leaders off the front… another two chasing hard… a handful more trying to bridge the gap and then the main peloton – nearly two minutes before the start of the first climb.

Wow… attacks again so soon… great stuff…

So I drove on round the course in the opposite direction to the racers and stopped at the bottom of “Baker’s Bends” – the most technical descent – to watch them at as they came down for the second lap. A group of five came whizzing by – McCauley and two Auckland jerseys in there… two minutes later, a group of six… and nearly another two minutes came the main peloton – boy it was kinda scarey watching how FAST these boys move – that is one hairy, winding descent and they were treating it like it was straight!

Drove on up to the top again, parked, got out chairs, icey water, camera… here they came again… the leaders still out in front but attacks obviously going on behind with people changing places, and the tail enders beginnning to trail out behind…

We guessed that the gap would be bridged at about lap 5 or 6, and this is what happened, with new leaders and the pace obviously not letting up – the lap times were remaining fast and the main contenders were obviously keeping the heat on trying to drop as many other riders as they could. This was quite a different form of racing from the women.

We started heading back after they came by on their 6th lap and stopped two thirds of the way down the climbs to watch them come by again. Where we stopped, local buy Jeremy Vennell was in the lead of a group of six. Woohoo!

We kept on driving, not wishing to miss the sprint finish, but we shouldn’t have worried. Julian Dean came in ahead by a comfortable 15 seconds or so. (At this point my camera turned off – insufficient battery – and just missed his victory salute across the finishe line! And it was thrilling to see two of our local boys, Jeremy Yates and Jeremy Vennell arrive in 4th and 6th places.

We were also able to watch the three young lads from Auckland take out the top three spots in the U23 title. So much effort, grit and determination.

An awesome if rather hot day.