The pain of a broken collarbone didn't prevent Auckland rider Mike Henton from completing the first stage of the Tour of Southland.
Henton rode the final 30km of Monday's first stage from Invercargill to Lumsden with the broken bone millimetres from breaking through the skin after a crash.
It is the second time in three weeks he has broken his left collarbone.
"I had a bit of a silly crash in the crosswinds there and I landed just square on the shoulder _ exactly what I didn't want to happen,'' he said. "I broke it three weeks ago during the Tour of Tasmania. It was healing quite well, I still had a little bit of pain but it was fairly solid.''
At least, it was until it hit the Southland tarmac 3km south of Mossburn. "It was really bizarre. I jumped back up and the shoulder felt perfect, like there was nothing wrong with it. I was up out of the saddle and everything,'' he said.
"As I started off I thought `there's no pain there so maybe something's happened to fix it?'. Then about 5km later reason started to kick in and I thought `hang on, there's something seriously wrong'.''
Henton completed the stage for his Ascot Park Hotel team before heading to Southland Hospital for X-rays.
"They revealed I was about three or four millimetres away from having the bone come through the skin,'' he said.
Now facing surgery later this week, it's not enough to deter him from remaining on Tour in a support capacity.
"I want to have the operation down here so I can stay and support the guys and do what I can for the team.''
Henton first rode the iconic Tour three years ago and it is now the highlight on his racing calendar.
"I was lying in bed this morning and thought `maybe I could get on my bike?' but then just as quickly went `nah','' he said.
"I've trained all year for this and it's my main race for the year so it is hard to end up in this situation but that's racing. The most frustrating thing is I rarely crash and now I've crashed twice in the last three weeks. It's a little bit annoying.''
