Cycle tour best ever

BY WALT DICKSON - WAIRARAPA NEWS

Trust House Cycle Classic race director Jorge Sandoval says last week's tour was the best ever in the history of the 23-year-old event.

A redesigned course coupled with a stellar field of riders made for "superb racing", Sandoval says.

New Plymouth rider Michael Torckler stunned organisers to head home the 110-strong field, which included riders from seven countries.

Sandoval says he is constantly looking at ways to improve the tour, but given the level of feedback from riders, he thinks he may have come up with the perfect circuit.

The return of the Rimutaka Hill was the most notable change to the 2010 tour as well as an almost total shift away from Wellington.

Four of the five days of the 564km tour were based in Wairarapa, with the fifth day, a criterium in Wellington, cancelled due to the weather.

It's a fact that hasn't been lost on Trust House Charitable Trust, principal sponsors of the annual tour.

"It really is a Wairarapa cycling event and if we do it again we will certainly be having the naming of it Wairarapa rather than Wellington," Trust House Charitable Trust chairman Brian Bourke says.

Although Trust House is still to have a debrief on the event, Mr Bourke told Wairarapa News that feedback has been very positive.

"It's a well-organised event and we see a level of cycle that we would otherwise never see in Wairarapa," Mr Bourke says.

"We get television exposure for all of Wairarapa in a rather unique way and that goes on for some time."

Meanwhile, Sandoval is confident the 2010 NZCT Women's Tour of New Zealand, later this month, will prove equally exciting to that of the men's.

The Women's Tour starts on February 24, with a stage from Martinborough to Masterton, and will finish five days later with the Wellington circuit in Lambton Quay. It will be the seventh version of the tour. It is now recognised overseas as the best women's cycle race in this country, according to Sandoval.