Congratulations to Louis Crosby who rode to 2nd fastest time in the annual Gallipoli Cup race on Sunday.
Also a top effort from Hamish Elley-Brown who was fastest U19.
Both athletes are coming into good form for the National Club championships later this week.

Tour of Rotorua
STAGE ONE- this was a hard and fast stage, went into it this time without going blocks, and was an 80k road race on a 20 k circuit. I attacked and attacked and kept trying and trying to get away, several minor breaks were the result. On lap 3 a break of 9 formed up the road, on the main climb of the course I attacked to bridge the gap and took 3 riders with me, we soon caught them; I definitely did most of the work in the chase. Once us four got on the group started rolling through nicely and we ended up getting 2 mins on the bunch by the end of the stage, an average of 43!! Absolutely hauling, felt fast but not that fast, was a solid race. Cramped in final sprint but ended up with break time. Legs felt great today and definitely got my name out there for the selectors.

STAGE TWO- time trial of just 10k. Felt real good this afternoon, had a good warm up, same as what I normally do, 15 easy, some tempo and then couple of short sharp efforts. Got to start in good time and had a good start, pretty much down hill on way out and up hill way back, with big hill coming up to finish. Car got in my way at start but managed to get round it and soon got into my rhythm. Passed two guys on way out which was nice. Way back was hard hard but still fast, at times I was spinning out my 14. Climb at end was a grind and was absolutely fucked by finish, flattens off a bit after final climb. Felt quite good about how I did, ended up 5th equal in tt and 6th in GC just 15 seconds behind yellow. The tour could still be mine!

STAGE THREE- criterium, 30 minutes plus 2 laps. Legs felt fantastic this morning and was able to have a really good crit. Won one of 3 sprint primes and got third in another. I ended up 3rd in criterium so happy with that! This put me up into 5th on GC with some time bonuses and I’m now just 11 seconds behind Alex mccory who’s in yellow.

STAGE FOUR- 90k road race, 6 laps of smaller circuit, not very hilly, pretty similar to the first stage. Went on with intention of getting in early break and destroying up whole field. Legs were great in this first part of the race but turned to shit by about lap 4. I was extremely frustrated because on lap 6 the winning break , for stage and tour went and I wanted to go but quite simply didn’t have the legs, did everything I could today from nutrition to water, massage etc. but guess my mistake was going to hard in first part of race, probably just a bit of bad luck. Still finished on 6th on GC with James Oram moving in front of me and into yellow, with a clever wee break in last lap. Good to have improved from last week. Now it’s just a matter of whether I’ll get into the Canada team or the Canberra team. Looking at results and comparing them I think I have a good chance for Canada, not sure about worlds but who knows what could happen after nationals if I have a good one there. Slim chance for anyone to worlds apparently. Average today was fast again, 41.5! All in all have got to be happy with how the last 10 days has gone. With another solid performance at Nationals I’ll be putting my hand up pretty high for the selectors.

Tour of Te Awamutu
STAGE 1: 104k road race. Solid race today, 10ks out and then four times round a 20k max circuit. Went from gun with Alex mccory bowick, might not have been the smartest move but did it anyway. We got hauled back pretty quick after about 5k, I sat in for the next 5k while another break formed with josh Atkins, Alex, and another rider Darcy. These 3 gained about 25 seconds and then I attacked to bridge, 2 other riders came with me, we got up to the other 3 quite soon and started working well together. I didn’t go for any KoM points of sprint ace points because I was more looking for time and GC than anything. we eventually had about a minute and a half on the bunch, in the last 30k I started cramping and the break came down to two, I dropped back into a group of 8 which was where I finished, a minute up on bunch and a minute down josh and Alex, annoyed I cramped, I had the legs to stay at the front.

STAGE 2: 111k Road Race. Legs feeling pretty flat today after big stage yesterday. Wanted to get more time but legs didn’t have it in first part of race, just rode in bunch for first two laps and then started to look for opportunities in the second half of the race. I went off the front a couple of times and then missed a break of 4 which I tried to bridge to but ended up missing. So I waited for it to come back and just hoped for the break to come back, the riders up the road weren’t in contention for GC which took a bit of pressure off. Two riders ended up finishing 15 seconds on bunch; I now stand at 6th on GC. Hoping for good legs for an important tt tomorrow. Bit disappointed about today but yesterday was a hard day so understandable.

STAGE 3: 25k TT. Got to school where the racing starts in good time and had a lot of time to get a good warm up in. Warm up went well and got to start in good time. I rode on the rollers for a few minutes before I was called to start. Went off at a tempo pace, not too hard but soon got into my rhythm. Think I started smashing it a bit hard on way out because I didn’t feel like I had such a good rhythm today as I have when I’ve done decent tts. Strong head wind on way out was a challenge and hill at end up to turn was death. 12 and a half k into a head wind murdered me and I was pretty dead for trip back. Still managed to get 8th on GC, disappointing because I was hoping for top 5, revenge will take place next weekend.

Coach Strong has a bunch of riders currently competing in the Twin Coast Cycle challenge run over 4 days in the Northland region.
After Day 1 I am happy to report that all finished safely.
Due to the way the results are published its difficult to tell how they are all doing in their respective grades, because the results are listed in overall net time. So difficult to tell how people placed within their grade.
I did spot Nico de Jong finishing on the first page in the Elite category and noticed that Carly Braithwaite knocked about 7mins off her time of last year.
I’ll try and keep updating as news filters back.

Congratulations to Soren Hall who can now call himself an Ironman. Finishing in Hospital wasn’t the plan but a gutsy effort all the same.
New KE athlete Keegan Gilder posted a pretty sharp waterfront TT time of 26.34 (he’s 14 yo)
Out at the opening day at Counties Manukau Hamish Elley Brown raced with the A-graders and was contending a podium spot at the finish, coming in 9th. As an under 19 he has a big future.
Peter Colenbrander won D-grade and is looking forward to stepping up to C-grade after a good summer of training.

News that AvantiPlus Mt Eden are only running the waterfront TT’s until the end of the month is sad. I hope someone else takes it on.
Next weeks Counties race is a handicap affair from Ramarama - looking forward to some more good results from the KE team.

Defending champion Toni Bradshaw will have her work cut out for her keeping at the top of the heap at this years Rev120 race in Hamilton on Saturday.
Last year Toni attacked a small breakaway group a km from the finish to come across the line solo hand puched to the sky in victory.
Toni is feeling confident about her form and looking forward to more of a challenge this year as more elite riders are targeting the race in preparation for the upcoming international Womens Tour of Wellington. The field at the Rev120 this year is a who’s who of NZ reps and champions and many are saying its as strong as the recent Nationals field. Toni was top 10 there and will hope to improve on that this Saturday.

Many more Kinetic Edge athletes will also be competing on Saturday, look out for each other and all have great rides. No crashing please. I can’t take any more road rash stories following races on Mondays.

Good to see so many KE athletes out on the Waterfront competing in the weekly Time Trials on Saturday mornings.
Last Saturday brought a couple of significant break through’s for a couple of athletes.
Hamish Osborne broke 22mins for the first time recording 21:46
Mike Henton broke 21mins for the first time recording 20:53

Good stuff guys, setting the bar high!

KE athlete Glen Frost broke the 22min barrier and rode a pb in the Waterfront Time Trial in Auckland on Saturday. After some setbacks with injury recently its great to see Frosty coming good.

Congratulations to KE athlete Kate Mullarkey on placing 4th in the Kieran on the track at the Oceania Games.

After a below par first half of this years tour I was pretty keen to try and at least do something constructive today. Ascot Park had a simple plan really. Get Paddy into an early break and let him do his sprinting thing to get some more points in the green jersey competition. Step two of the plan was to get one of the rest of us in the decisive move of the day.
Once Paddy had gained a few more sprint points over the first 45km, he sat up and came back to the bunch. The bunch wasn’t that keen on the selection up the road and the break came back soon afterwards.
At this stage it started to get real aggressive again and it was only a matter of time before something got away. Legs felt good so it was game on. A short climb and some good attacks went. Managed to make it onto that one pretty easy, but the selection was never going to be left to go. We were soon swallowed up, but that burst gave me the confidence to try again. Legs finally feeling OK after 4 days.
The next attack saw a group of about 9 of us get clear but with only 5 motivated to work it too wasn’t looking like the right move. We had with us Tom Findlay the U23 leader and 6th overall. A few words were exchanged and Tom drifted off the back for a few seconds along with the others intent on sitting on. The rest of us didn’t need any encouragement to put the hammer down and were soon out to a handy lead. Jeremy Yates, Ben King and Peter Latham.
The rest of the race was one of cooperation for the four of us until the final stages.
Up the steep wall with 30km to go I slipped off the front, but felt it too soon to try and go solo. Hindsight is a funny thing. After letting Jeremy and Pete catch back up they rolled over the top of me so hard I barely got onto them.
Convinced that the race would come down to a duel up the Crown Range I relaxed a little too much and Yates surprised me with an impressive attack on the short climb 10km from home. Amateur mistake really. The chase not only took the sting out of my climbing but handed Yates a 10s buffer at the bottom. Once on the climb I realised that being at the head of the race for 1/2 of it was taking its toll and I had little left to close the gap with. A last ditch effort over the final 300m had me cross the line only 3s behind, but when you get that close you aren’t exactly stoked. Still, Ascot has had three top 3 finishes in 3 days now and would like to add to it over the next few days.

Strongman