Second stage win for Patrick Bevin

BARRY HARCOURT/Southland Times

ROLLING IN: Patrick Bevin (Ascot Park Hotel) wins stage seven of the Tour of Southland into Te Anau yesterday.

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Patrick Bevin claimed his second stage victory of the 2009 Tour of Southland yesterday and made the sprint ace jersey his own with two stages to go.

The Ascot Park Hotel rider made the most of his opportunity in the breakaway bunch.

He worked hard early on and then gave his legs a break during the final stages so he would be fresh for the sprint up Te Anau's main street.

"I did my share. I was out there to take the points and it was only fair that I did my bit," Bevin said.

"I shirked my responsibility with probably 10 or 15km to go, but to me it didn't matter whether we won by 10sec or 10min, it wasn't my job. That's the luxury of being down on GC."

Colourplus' Marc Ryan was second home in the stage, with Bici Vida junior Alex Ray claiming third.

Things didn't all go Bevin's way. He had to get back into contention after a rear-wheel puncture near Manapouri, but that meant little after he followed up Wednesday's stage win into Tuatapere with victory in Te Anau.

"That was a long day. I've got happier as the Tour's gone on, every day has got better by the minute."

The real story, however, was the early breakin which the overall lead changed hands and Heath Blackgrove (Zookeepers-Cycle Surgery) took a strong grip on the PowerNet-sponsored tour's yellow jersey.

Breaking soon after the stage start in Winton, a group of more than a dozen riders made the most of their resources to jump away from the peloton.

It included tour contenders Blackgrove and Marc Ryan (Colourplus), Cyclingnzshop.com-Bio Sport's Floyd Landis, the under-23 leader Tom Findlay (Bici Vida) and sprint ace leader Bevin, among others.

While it was notable for who was there, it was more notable for who wasn't.

Crucially, Tour leader Jack Bauer (Share the Road), Bissell Pro Cycling teams Peter Latham and Jeremy Vennell, who were second and third respectively, and Subway-Avanti leader Gordon McCauley missed the break.

For the most part the breakaway group worked well. Findlay was a limpet on the back and didn't lack for advice as a result, but he was in the minority. By the time they turned into the wind on the road to the Blackmount climb they were ahead by more than 2min and they reached the bottom of the climb with almost a 4min advantage.

Southland Times rider Michael Vink won the hill climb, but surprisingly the 12 riders who started it together managed to stay intact through the climb.

Behind them Bauer was mounting a furious counter-attack. Share the Road's plan had been to attack after the Blackmount, but Bauer struggled to get anyone to go with him, other than Team Enterprise's Jeremy Yates, who had earlier promised his support.

"We could see the break up the road but we didn't have enough manpower so again the big bunch came back to us. I put it in the box as much as I could the last 40km to try and get it back but that's the way it goes."

Bauer is one of the more likeable riders in the peloton. He was able to look on the positives at the stage finish, despite losing the yellow jersey he had worn for two days.

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