Tuesday morning call-ins

Tim Mullinar with Thomas Lindup, 05:35 Tuesday morning in Arthurs Pass: "Arrived here at 11pm last night. It was a very long day; I started at 4:30am, about 20kms before Springs Junction. Spent 7 hours in Big River - hell ride. We gave Simon heaps - of course he just smiled back. A real mission. Up the gorge at about 10pm last night in the light rain. So we got here alright and now we're off to Hanmer."

Tina Bayer with Willi Borst, 06:10 Tuesday in Reefton, "Just going to head off with a [????] so that should be fun."

David King,  06:59 Tuesday in Stillwater, "Another belated call-in. I forgot about Reefton. Cheers."

Jasper van der Lingen, 07:09 Tuesday in Arthurs Pass: "Feeling reasnoalbe OK. Good to be in the East Coast. Next call-in Sheffield. See you then."

Phil White and Anne Mortimer, 07:34 Tuesday in Authers Pass: "So far going all right today. We had a tough time yesterday - including a 2 hour detour because some nice man parked himself and his bike in front of a sign post which pointed to the Big River track and didn't tell us when we were going the wrong road. And had a few mechanical issues... but were getting there.Hopefully we'll have a better day today."

Mike Anderson,  08:41 Tuesday in Murchison: "I am in Murchison, have been since 11 trying to recuperate from 3 ridiculously hard days of riding. Unfortunately I'm in an advanced state of saddle soreness - so bad that I can not even sit on my saddle and I had to stand or walk over the Porika track and the Braeburn. I'm not getting any better unfortunately. So I'm going to call it quits. It has been a fun - in a strange sort of way - experience. I'll be back next year with some lessons learned. First is that a cyclo-cross bike is not sufficient. Went down the Maungatapu track in the dark on the first day... [call truncated at 60 seconds].

Joel McFarlane Roberts with [something], Ed McDonald, Phil Byron (all from Aust.), and Jan Witkowski (Poland) 08:44 Tuesday in Ikamatua: "Jan is pulling out at this stage - he has an injury and will be riding to Greymouth and making his way back to Blenheim from there."

Chris Gilbertson, 09:19 Tuesday in Reefton: "All is well."

Chris Sherwood, Jo Holden, Dave Bailey, 10:17 Tuesday in Reefton: "The sun has come out, it's turning into a beautiful day. Enjoying it so far. Hope all is well."

Chris Tennent Brown with Simon Kennett, Thomas Lindup and Tim Mulliner,  11:49 Tuesday in Sheffeild: "And we are so full, and we are so smashed; we had the worst 60k, followed by quite a fast 20k - we were god-like coming in to town. We were sad before then.