{"id":1788,"date":"2015-07-15T13:06:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T12:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/?p=1788"},"modified":"2018-02-06T13:06:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T13:06:29","slug":"2015-tour-of-friendship-stage-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/2015-tour-of-friendship-stage-5\/","title":{"rendered":"2015 Tour of Friendship, Stage 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was the final stage of the race and after a rough few days I was kind of looking forward to it.\u00a0 It was another flat stage on a mixture of big wide roads and country roads.\u00a0 I decided to start with the Open group and work my way back down through the groups and try and capture the faces of the peloton rather than the country side.<\/p>\n

The Open started like a bat out of hell and the pace was through the roof, who would have thought these guys had 4 days of racing in their legs however there was some real suffering going on.\u00a0 Eventually it settled down and this is when I stopped and waited for the next group.\u00a0 I stuck with the next group for a while before stopping at a little shop for a break and to wait for the next group.\u00a0 Much to my surprise there was a group of guys drinking beer.\u00a0 It was only 9.40 in the morning and they were already 6 big bottles down.\u00a0 I declined the offer of a glass of beer and just took a couple of photos which they were happy to pose for.\u00a0 Finally the last group rolled trough and I was off again.\u00a0 I hadn’t shot this group before today so it was nice to capture some fresh faces and also get a few shots of the women in the peloton.<\/p>\n

Todays race finished pretty close to the hotel thankfully as it was pretty hot.\u00a0 After a quick shower it was off to the final lunch and prize giving and then onto the bus back to Bangkok airport.\u00a0 In a way I was relieved to be heading home as this was the toughest race I’ve covered due to feeling off colour, however I still had a great time and I am looking forward to next year.<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0551\"<\/p>\n

Various methods of race prep before the start.<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0552\"<\/p>\n

A fast start for the Open guys.<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0553\"<\/p>\n

Peloton Women.<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0550\"<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0555\"<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0554\"<\/p>\n

Beer o’clock! 0940hr.<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0558\"<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0556\"<\/p>\n

\"img_Sports_0559\"<\/p>\n

The race wouldn’t be what it is without all the hard work from this special lady.\u00a0 Until next year Kai…..<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was the final stage of the race and after a rough few days I was kind of looking forward to it.\u00a0 It was another flat stage on a mixture of big wide roads and country roads.\u00a0 I decided to start with the Open group and work my way back down through the groups and … Continue reading 2015 Tour of Friendship, Stage 5<\/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":[6,16,25,17,59,58],"class_list":["post-1788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sport","tag-craig-sheppard","tag-cycling","tag-road-cycling","tag-sports","tag-thailand","tag-tour-of-friendship"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788","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=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1904,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.craigsheppard.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}