Hard yards build Olympics base

New Zealand Olympic rider Sam Bewley saw yesterday's stage win in the New Zealand Cycle Classic as a perfect way for him to get training under his belt in his team's build-up to this year's Olympics.

Bewley and his New Zealand team-mates Aaron Gate, Marc Ryan, Shane Archbold and Myron Simpson will be riding at the World Championships in Melbourne in April and the London Olympics in August.

But they are using this five-day tour in the Manawatu as a way for them to get out and practice on their bikes, even if it was in the rain yesterday.

"We come to these tours pretty much for training preparation for track stuff," Bewley said.

They head to Invercargill in a couple of weeks for training, then to the world championships ahead of the Olympics in London in August.

The aim was to get "long days" on the bike, said Bewley.

"Long, hard days building up on endurance. It's a good base to build with."

Bewley win in the third stage yesterday was a sprint finish, just ahead of Subway rider Nick Lovegrove.

The pair broke away from the main bunch just outside of Palmerston North and opened up a big lead of seven minutes by the time they had reached the top of Pohangina Valley.

The peloton started to cut down their lead and had nearly caught them at the end of the race.

But Lovegrove and Bewley managed to hang on and finished seven seconds ahead of the chasing bunch.

Bewley felt the stage win had given him a good ride so it might be up to one of the other team-mates to try to set the pace in the two remaining days.

"We'll keep trying to get another stage win," he said.

"Maybe not me. We've got a couple of guys who are faster finishers."

An Olympic bronze medallist in 2008, Bewley was happy with the win and said that although it was a good way to get some miles on the bike under his belt, the stage win had been "really really hard".

"When you go off the front with 145km to go with only two guys, it's never going to be easy."

It was "a really really hard ride."

He and Lovegrove were virtually on their knees in the sprint finish.

"The last 40 or 50km with the headwinds, to hold on and to win the stage is pretty satisfying."

He said the final part of the race into the wind was the hardest riding he had done in his life.

- © Fairfax NZ News