Looking to tackle a multi-day adventure – five of the LUPA Crew legends (Britt, Collette, Carly, Lindy and Marcel) took on the 5 Passes Tour around the South Island in November 2022. Covering 636km and 6000+vm this event is a buffet of fully serviced riding for 4 days with a side of stage racing (if you like adding a bit of spice into the legs & lungs!). Having met initially through e-racing Team Time Trials it was no surprise we sought to be the fastest women’s team in the TTT.
It rained. And then it rained some more. And when you think it couldn’t possibly rain anymore – there was more. Welcome to riding across the South Island in November with 130 other cyclists! But in good news it was warm rain (and it was only absolutely freezing when we had to stop – which was all too often).
So a little bit of background about this Tour. You ride in grades according to a “loose” level of ability, self seeding and space available in each grade. There are races within this tour for each grade – Yellow Jersey, KOM Jersey, Sprint Jersey, Flame Rouge Jersey and also the Team Time Trial. We road in C1 with the other ladies teams; deciding “we” [looking at you Britt you serial beast mode attacker] wanted to mix it up front to cause as much havoc as possible. We had a good mix of strengths as a team – but we ultimately we had one goal. We wanted to be the fastest women’s team in the Team Time Trial because our happy place is when we are absolutely ripping our legs off for each other and this was what interested us most about this Tour. And also it would be really difficult to ever ride this route without being fully supported and only have to bike-eat-sleep-repeat!
Day 1 was Christchurch to Hanmer Springs with two race stages, a lot of neutral rolling and then a 6.5km spicy slightly uphill TTT into Hanmer to finish the day. This was just a day to feel out the bunch and our fellow riders – just roll for the same time and keep it safe. So we went on the attack early in the first stage almost getting an early breakaway happening; but not to be deterred after being reeled in we kept putting in spicy little attacks ahead of the first sprint finish. As anticipated the end of the first stage was a total mess of bodies and some super loose handling all over the road but we were stoked with a 2nd on the line and no loss of time. The safe approach was the right call to make sure our tour didn’t end in the frantic white line ego zone and we hoped the bunch would settle ahead of stage 2. After a short climbed past Frog Rock over the Weka Pass it was all on for positioning into the sprint and then finish. We hoped to have Collette, Britt and I ready to drop some watts into the sprint as a train and then continue on to the finish line. It was a bit chaotic with bodies and lots of some teams mistiming their sprints; but we finished 2nd in the sprint and stage. After a long lunch on the grass with a bit of sunshine (still cool though) we were definitely pumped to get up to Hanmer Springs for the TTT and round out a great day.
There would be less than 12mins of spicy pain ahead with the 6.5km TTT in Hanmer. We had a plan going into this slight headwind uphill course and like all good plans it went completely out the window as soon as it was go time. We had a bit of a rough start off the line and also had a few too many gaps open; meaning we needed to slot in to fill them instead of recovering and couldn’t keep our pace as consistent. We lost Carly earlier than planned; burned Collette’s legs to a crisp ahead of the hilly rise; and then it was all in for Britt and I while making sure Lindy held tight on to our wheels like a VO2 slaying champion. We ended up rolling in 3rd with a time of 11:49 – 16 seconds down on first; and 8 seconds behind second. We’d learned a few lessons, worked out some better communication signals and we were feeling pretty confident that we would be able to reel in the time difference over the next two TTTs.
Everything felt pretty horrific on Day 2 and it is also the longest day on the tour. We had big early kicker climbs as well as a sprint to get through ahead of climbing Lewis Pass. The day’s weather was predicted to be extreme rain so stage 5 was already cancelled and called neutral for safety over the Rahu Saddle. Britt went all in off the neutral rollout shredding legs up the first pinching climbs and my HR was through the roof as I suffered to hang on and keep with the split she was making. Turns out Britt and I both had Covid but we didn’t know until after the tour finished and we could test – but explains a lot of the HR data and heavy difficult breathing we were both ignoring in the pursuit of killing our legs. Everything was pretty good (hurting but surviving) until halfway up the Lewis Pass when we had to all stop for a truck to pass. Excellent – a mini breather and then I was shelled out the back when I couldn’t clip in on the uphill restart (what a noob moment) but Britt hung in with the bunch until the last part of the KOM. The beautiful misty descent down into Springs Junction was magic though. Then after a freezing food stop to regroup with all the team; it was time to ride up the now neutral Rahu Saddle.
We were all stoked to not have to race this particularly steep climb on cold legs. It also meant I was going to getting to ride it with almost all of the people I’ve ever done my 200km+ days with and hang with our mates in other grades. It was one of the most beautiful climb experiences – challenging but scenic before rolling a full send pace line with my buddies through a lush valley. It was pretty special even when the rain came in hard near the end. After a change of clothes, warming up and eating lunch in Reefton – we rolled out in groups to the start of the TTT. The weather had cleared and conditions were great for a sub 20 minute effort.
We lined up for the 12km rolling terrain TTT near the Pike River Mine Memorial. We got off to another rocky start with an early split off the line but quickly got ourselves into line and went full send. Our rotations were silky smooth and flawlessly executed and we were gaining on the teams ahead which kept the fire burning strong to hold that red zone for longer and dig that little bit deeper. We had a few small splits on the descents but we were able to keep it smooth by reordering and regrouping quickly. Unfortunately we got ego blocked HARD by a mixed category team of mens individuals that we had already overtaken; who then sat on our train to wait for the final descending roller to try to get over us, but they also ended up blocking the road into the finish kilometre while we were trying to move around them AGAIN as their teams wheel were falling off their train. There was not a soul around that did not hear us (me…it was mostly me) ripping them to shreds for riding so unsafe on the road and costing us precious finishing time. We rolled in with a time of 18:30 – now cumulatively 40 seconds down on first place but at least we we’re now sitting in a comfortable second place with one final opportunity to throw down.
Day 3 was a short yet brutal day on the legs as you go from Greymouth to Arthurs Pass. With the exception of a few rollers on the way into Moana; this was a mostly flat racing stage. 100% perfect for full send sprint watts before heading into the soul destroying Otira Viaduct ITT climb to conquer Arthurs Pass. Today we could relax and just have a bit of fun, surf the bunch and position well, before dropping some big watts and trying to stay upright when it gets messssssssy in the 2 segment sprints. Then we’d have to focus on trying to not walk up the 25%+ gradients of the Otira Viaduct in blazing sun while hoping the camera really captures our best angles over the top of Arthurs Pass.
The sun was out, the weather was warm and the scenery was absolutely stunning. There was much the enjoy even when the legs & lungs were absolutely destroyed!!! We went all in on the sprints – nabbing a 1st & 3rd (and lucky to avoid crashing out) and 2nd respectively in the two sprint throw downs. Completely cooked but loving life and riding bikes it was time to really hurt and tackle the Otira Viaduct. Imagine riding up a wall suspended over a gorge and that is pretty much how it feels. Lindy ripped up the Viaduct like a rocket; while the rest of us barely scraped ourselves over with what ever we had available.
A fast and beautiful descent into Arthurs Pass was well worth the effort before getting to hang in the sun on the grass with mates, laughing about the horrors of Otira and how it unfolded for each of us. Good times, great vibes continued into the evening as we grabbed our day bags and rolled down to the cutest little Red Cottage amongst the Keas. The tunes got pumped up loud and the party was on with plenty of laughs together.
Day 4 started in the rain without a neutral zone, so it was straight into racing on relatively cold legs. It was my least favourite but it led to really early splits between those who can just grit through the early pain and those needing some more warm up. Britt set out early again to create a break in the first stage and FINALLY try to just get a bit of solo women’s racing. She got away with 3 other legends from the Alpacas Team; while I stayed holding the chasers back to make sure we could carve minutes out their GC times to move Britt up the ladder [and beg the guys to not chase them down and let us have our own race]. None of the other ladies had made this first bunch so I could even stop and take off my rain coat while I waited for all the chasers pack before settling into tempo pace on the front to let the time slip away; hoping Britt was slaying it hard. Unfortunately roadworks near the end of the stage had traffic backed up in both directions; and all the cyclists were waiting on the shoulder overflow. The stage was abandoned and called neutral. You win some, you lose some; but you never know unless you go – it was a good tactic but just didn’t pan out. Not too worried we tried to not expend any additional energy in the final race stage into Porters Pass ahead of the penultimate TTT and left the GC legends to their own battle on the final stage.
After a spicy post lunch neutral (not sure what had the men so fired up – but we got there pretty quick!); we were in the queue ready to full send into the finish with a 26.5km downhill TTT. This was it – ALL OR NOTHING time on a course we had been so EXCITED to get to because it suited our team profile best. The only question we needed to answer was how deep into the red could we each go with almost 600kms in the legs? We had to claw back 40 seconds and knew it was going to be tight. We needed a perfect run and had completely trust in each other to give it our all. We started strong; big watts and big rotations – clawing back time and focusing on chasing down the teams ahead of us on the road. We also had our friends from Frameworks Negative Split Carbon (in B grade) chasing us hard to give us the motivation to hold them out for as long as possible – and then of course not let them get out of our sight when they passed us!
We’d each roll off the front with a pain filled whimper but the encouragement never ceased from each other as we slotted back into the pace line – just hold the wheel, breathe and recover because we were all doing this and the pace was exactly what we needed. About 1/3rd of the way in Carly put in one last effort and called herself out; we upped the pace a little more to try to close the gaps to the team just ahead who had formed a massive 16 person train – shooting by them in no time. Everything was hurting, the wind was picking up, Britt and I were doing huge pulls on the front, Collette’s head was saying no but we were telling her she could make it to the corner. We took the corner fast and turned straight into a brutal head wind. Collette’s shift was done and we were down to our three to make it to the line. Britt and I worked the front to keep Lindy protected and on our wheel no matter what; and before long it was one final sprint into the line tucked up together. I’m pretty sure we were bleeding from our eyeballs as we sprinted into that line with every last bit of power we had left as the rain started again. 34.29mins!!! We managed to take a 10th spot overall out of 30 teams; and finished 84 seconds ahead!
We’d done it – we were the Fastest Women’s Team in the TTT. We’d also nabbed 2nd in the Women’s Sprint Classification for the tour which was an added bonus and testament to some great team work over the 4 days.
The weather wasn’t flash but probably could have been worse given the West Coast is notoriously wet – we were definitely luckier than some of previous years Tours with the weather. The accommodation was great. The support staff were unfailingly amazing all day, everyday and they really make this Tour run smoothly so you can just enjoy it. The food was mostly abundant, more party focused then health focused so a bit below expectations for the nutrition conscious or those vego/vegans. The constant stopping, food time breaks and re-starting between riding/racing was not ideal on the body and not my preference when it comes to any form of riding/racing. There was sandbagging aplenty and lots of dubious multi-team tactics (and the usual amount of silly white line fever from people without the adequate handling skills) so it was a bit hard to even really think of this as a genuine stage race. But there were plenty of great chats with awesome souls, huge admiration for all the women out there slaying everyday, lots of laughs at all the time, huge high fives and dancing within our team making it the best time away on our bikes that we could have had. A wonderful way to make amazing memories that will last a lifetime.
Would we do it again? Probably; but only if there was a women’s specific grade and minimal stopping.
x Marcel Smithers