A friend of Qwik Kiwi, Guy Carter is riding in the Tour of Southland for the first time. Guy is a Chartered Accountant who is now establishing himself as a Mortgage Broker and normally rides for L&M Group Ricoh Team in the Calder Stewart Elite Cycling Series. We will be publishing a daily interview with Guy after each stage to give you an insight into ‘Life in the Peloton’.
QK: Firstly Happy Birthday, a little birdie told me you are celebrating today. Any sort of special celebrations either before, during or after today’s stage? Did the team or other riders acknowledge it in any way?
GC: Yes we are heading to Speights Ale House for dinner with the Ricoh south team!
QK: Talk us through how the stage unfolded for you and for the rest of the team?
GC: Pretty fast start with a lot of attacks and at 9km a break of four riders up the road. I initiated a solo move and bridged 3/4 of the gap. Nick Kergozou came across to me but I was unable to stay with him and after a couple kilometres went back to the main group. After that it was pretty steady riding until we hit the cross winds at 100km for 20km and within a matter of minutes the main peloton turned into 4 groups on the road. The front two groups came together 20km to go we finished 7:26min down. Aaron got up in the front move and finished 5th.
QK: Your Creation Signs/L&M Group/Ricoh teammate Aaron Gate managed to finish in the top five. That’s a great individual result. A lot of people don’t appreciate the team effort to get a rider into this position. Can you fill in some detail for the readers so they know how he ended up being in this position in the race due to the efforts of other team members.
GC: We looked after Gatey early on making sure he was out of the wind and being protected. Tim and I went back and got the bottles for the team. When the cross winds hit, Gatey made his way to the front group and stayed there! The racing was brutal hitting HR [Heart Rate] of 190 just to hold a wheel.
QK: Tomorrow is a 150km Stage from Riverton to Te Anau. With Aaron in the top ten and only a few seconds off the top five, is this something the team will look to protect or advance or are there other goals tomorrow?
GC: We will look to keep Gatey in a good position over Blackmount and hopefully rack up some more sprint and KOM points as Jimmy is sitting 3rd on sprint points.
QK: What role will you play for the team tomorrow?
GC: Team talk will be in the morning, but look for the break again, otherwise ensure our lead riders get comfortably over the hill and in position for a sprint finish.
QK: All the best for tomorrow’s stage.
Here is a link to Guy’s Strava file for Stage One.
https://www.strava.com/activities/761224267
The Creation Signs L&M Group Ricoh team are sponsored by:
- Creation Signs,
- L&M Group, and
- Ricoh.
Previous episodes of Life in the Peloton can be found here:
Life in The Peloton: Tour of Southland Stage One Interview with Brett Grieve
Life in The Peloton: Tour of Southland Stage One Interview with Michael Torckler
Life in The Peloton: Tour of Southland Prologue Summary Interview with Guy Carter
Life in The Peloton: Tour of Southland Prologue Summary Interview with Brett Grieve
Life in The Peloton: Tour of Southland Pre-Race Interview with Brett Grieve
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