Landis ready for Southern chill

Controversial American cyclist Floyd Landis will be the 53rd Tour of Southland's main attraction but is unlikely to feature in the battle for the yellow jersey by tour's end.

Landis, stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for drugs during one of the stages, will be in the colours of the Cyclingnzshop.com-Biosport team.

But they do not look to have riders strong enough to help push him to the front of the general classification, unless he goes solo.

Most likely, Landis, a renowned mountain climber who helped Lance Armstrong win Tour de France titles between 2002 and 2004, will target the King of the Mountains jersey and give defending champion Jeremy Yates a run for his money.

But as always, the deep south's notoriously fickle weather conditions will throw the unpredictable into the mix and Landis said the harder the going got, the better he liked it.

"Last year sounded like really hard, I hear you had some pretty miserable weather," he told NZPA.

"The weather can change everything. That is good for me. I like it when things get really tough."

The $63,000, 860km six-day race begins on Monday from Invercargill with a teams' time-trial.

Defending champion Hayden Roulston, fresh from a strong European season, including a stage podium in the Tour de France, will start a strong favourite.

He has impressive back-up with fellow Olympic team pursuit bronze medallists Marc Ryan and Jesse Sergent riding shotgun for him.

Roulston will be motivated to win his fourth consecutive tour title ahead of his debut with his new professional team, Columbia, in January's Tour Down Under in South Australia.

Subway-Avanti will provide his main challenge.

Last year, the Christchurch-based squad won the teams title, the King of the Mountains (KOM) jersey through Yates and the under-23 title through James Williamson.

This year, they have brought in the indomitable double tour champion Gordon McCauley in their bid to take individual honours which has continued to elude them.

McCauley, riding with Cycle Surgery, held on to the yellow jersey for two thirds of last year's race until Roulston snatched it off him with a well-executed move on the penultimate stage.

He has made no secret of the fact that he wants to add another Southland title to those he won in 1996 and 2005.

McCauley will have strong support in the shape of former world omnium champion, Hayden Godfrey, who recently won the national clubs' road race title, reigning Tour of Caledonia champion Joseph Cooper, last year's Caledonia tour runner-up Eric Drower and Josh England.

National road race champion McCauley this month tuned up for the tour by winning the 153km Round the Mountain race in Taranaki for the first time in four attempts.

Other general classification contenders with more than a sniff of a chance include Jeremy Vennell and American Ben Jacques-May from the Bissell Pro team and the Zookeepers-Cycle Surgery outfit containing Heath Blackgrove and Glen Chadwick, who will be supported by Olympians Sam Bewley, Westley Gough and double world champion rower Hamish Bond.

Vennell, Blackgrove and Chadwick are seasoned professionals on the American circuit on which they notched some successes this season.

Blackgrove won 16 US races this season while Chadwick also travelled to Portugal, Spain, Mexico and Colombia, scoring stage wins each in the Spanish Vuelta Asturias and the Tour of Colombia.

The overseas challenge is expected to come from The all-American Now-MS Society team and the all-Australian Praties Cycling.

"Now MS-Society and Praties, by all accounts, have strong riders," tour director Bruce Ross told NZPA.

Also rated are the Robin Reid-led Kia Motors side and Team Enterprise, led by Yates.