Yep, doing Taupo! Thanks everyone for your good luck wishes! This is my comeback year as I was training for Taupo last year (which would have been my second time around) when I had a little bit of brain surgery. The after-effects kept me off my bike for around 8 months and for a while I doubted I'd ever ride again. I'm completely undertrained this year but am loving the new carbon bike I just treated myself to and am just going to approach this as my reward for all the stress of the last twelve months.

As for the New Zealand cycling situation, there continue to be incidents, including a hit and run on a cyclist in Nelson yesterday. At least four carparks have been removed from Tamaki Drive, where a woman swerved to avoid a car door and fell under a truck. My pack did a fast 55k flat ride today on a popular route and were certainly feeling quite sober beforehand. Incidents included a woman driving past yelling at us and a ute which screamed past me then pulled into a driveway forcing us to brake heavily. An Auckland cyclist was interviewed on Campbell Live a couple of nights ago. He commented that he'd had around 100 near misses in the last year. My husband asked if things were that bad in Wellington and I couldn't honestly say that they weren't. I think he's considering taking my lovely new bike off me!

Hopefully all the attention in the media on cycle safety might eventually make some difference. At the least the coroner is planning on holding an inquest into all cyclist deaths not already investigated in the last year (or so?). Some good may yet come out of this. However the real problem is the attitude of Kiwi drivers, and that will take a long time to resolve.