{"id":1616,"date":"2014-06-28T18:24:52","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T10:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2014-06-28T18:24:52","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T10:24:52","slug":"2014-tour-of-friendship-stage-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/2014-tour-of-friendship-stage-3\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Tour Of Friendship Stage 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stage 3 was always going to be a big day in the saddle for the riders as it was the longest stage and had a lot of climbing along the out-and-back route.\u00a0 My plan was to head out with the Open men to the top of the big climb and then follow the thirties men for the remainder of the race.\u00a0 Due to the size of the climb and the fast pace it seemed like the whole race was blown apart and riders from different categories were all mixed together.\u00a0 I ended up staying in one spot for too long and was worried I wouldn&#8217;t get to the front of the thirties category before the turn around.\u00a0 Luckily, the turn around was a lot further than I remembered and with the skills of my moto driver &#8216;Valentino&#8217; we caught up. It was very apparent that due to the undulating course &#8211; and ever-present heat &#8211; that there was alot of suffering going on across the numerous small groups that had spread out around the entire route around the resevoir.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1619\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0438.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0438\" width=\"820\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0438.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0438-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The pace was high to the bottom of the big climb.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1618\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0437.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0437\" width=\"820\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0437.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0437-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t long before the climbers came to the fore.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1620\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0439.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0439\" width=\"820\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0439.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0439-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Women gave a lot of men a run for their money.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1621\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0440.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0440\" width=\"820\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0440.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0440-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1622\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0441.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0441\" width=\"820\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0441.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0441-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>How to corner at speed while descending.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1623\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0442.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0442\" width=\"820\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0442.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0442-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>How not to corner at speed while descending.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1624\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0444.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0444\" width=\"820\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0444.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0444-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The road around the reservoir, hilly and very hot!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1625\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0445.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0445\" width=\"820\" height=\"546\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0445.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0445-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The front of the thirties at the turn around.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1626\" src=\"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0446.jpg\" alt=\"img_Sports_0446\" width=\"820\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0446.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/img_Sports_0446-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stage 3 was always going to be a big day in the saddle for the riders as it was the longest stage and had a lot of climbing along the out-and-back route.\u00a0 My plan was to head out with the Open men to the top of the big climb and then follow the thirties men &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/2014-tour-of-friendship-stage-3\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">2014 Tour Of Friendship Stage 3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,16,25,59,58],"class_list":["post-1616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sport","tag-craig-sheppard","tag-cycling","tag-road-cycling","tag-thailand","tag-tour-of-friendship"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1616"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1658,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions\/1658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}