When Mr Gough should have been working on the shop floor selling bicycles at Cycle World in Dunedin, he has actually been cycling on a wind trainer while watching pre-recorded stages of the 2012 Tour de France on a 55-inch television.
"It's great. The view is just as good as the real thing," he said.
Mr Gough has been cycling every leg of the tour to date, which means spending up to six hours at a time on his bicycle, to cover the equivalent of each stage, some of them more the 200km.
While doing the tour on a wind trainer was nowhere near as gruelling as the real thing, the former four-times world duathlon championships competitor said he had tried to make the ride as realistic as possible by turning up the resistance during the hill stages.
The ride has not been without purpose. Mr Gough has been raising funds for the New Zealand Heart Foundation, which promotes healthy living choices to encourage Kiwi heart health.
He said a Facebook page had been set up, and for every "like" he received in July, Cycle World would donate $1 to the foundation.
