Tour of Wellington 07
2007 Trust House Tour Of Wellington; UCI 2.2
Reported by Richard Speer
This years Tour commenced on Wednesday 24th January and would comprise seven stages raced over five days. Riders would complete a total of 564 kilometres of racing made up of a Team Time Trial, an Individual Time trial, two Criteriums and three Road Stages. The hardest and queen stage in this year’s tour was stage five, a hilly 125km road stage raced around the Masterton area finishing at the top of Admiral Hill, a 16km hill climb to a total of 535 meters above sea level.
Team Rubicon was represented by present team members Logan Hunn and Richard Speer and past team member Jason Allen.
Logan was lining up in the Samsung New Zealand team that was to be lead by World Cup medal winner and member of the 2006 New Zealand Commonwealth Games team Jason Allen. While Richard was lining up in the Trust House team which would be lead by Robin Reid the 2002 Tour winner and member of the NZL Athens Olympic road team and Jeremy Vennel who was runner up at Tour of Southland in 2006 and races for the pro-continental team DFL-Cyclingnews outfit.
Day1 and Stage1 saw the favourite team for the overall tour victory – Trek Zookeepers take out the 7km Team Time Trial in commanding fashion. Completing the course in 9min12sec. The Trust House Team finished in 4th place at 27sec and the Samsung Team in 7th place at 45sec.
Day2 and Stage2 would see the real racing begin with a 120km flat but windy road stage being raced. After 70km of racing a break of 6riders got clear and the race behind was completely shut down, Samsung was represented in the break by Jason Allen and thus the rest of the team could relax in the bunch. While the Trust House team managed to completely miss the break and therefore Richard was sent to the front by the team to stop the time gap ballooning and thus spent the next 50km riding at the front of the peloton unaided.
Stage3 was raced in the late afternoon of Day2 and comprised a figure eight shaped criterium circuit. The racing was hard and fast and thus only half of the 90rider field finished the full distance. Richard finished safely in the front bunch and Logan lost a few minutes.
Day3 and Stage4 was to be raced over a rolling to hilly 160km circuit. 18guys went up the road straight from the gun. Logan was included as well as team mate Jason Allen and Trust House team member Robin Reid. This break would prove to be the general classification winning move. With the time gap to the bunch being 15minutes at the stage completion. But only eight riders would survive to the finish. Logan was unable to stay with the break and was picked up by the bunch around the 100km mark, so to was Jason.
Day4 and Stage5 is the hardest and queen stage of the race. The day also dawned with rain, and lots of it. The whole stage was run off in humid wet conditions. Somewhere around 8,000ft of climbing was packed into the 125km. The race was kept under-control by the Zookeepers team who rode an impressively hard tempo all day. A break of 6riders did go clear early including Logan, but within 10km of it being established only two remained (Logan had been reabsorbed by the bunch). The break would be successful once again by the days end. Richard provided a shuttling service for his team leaders Robin and Jeremy all throughout the stage making sure they stayed inside the top20 all day and didn’t hit the wind. Then was required to put in attacks on the fourth to last climb and third to last climb to upset the tempo being ridden by the yellow jersey team and thin out the bunch. General classification was sorted out for good by the end of the day.
Day5 and Stage6 and Stage7 had no real changes in the overall standing and saw Hayden Roulston (ex US-Postal and Health-Net rider) of the Trek Zookeepers team take out the Time Trial and the overall win. Robin Reid finished 5th on the final general classification with the Trust House team finishing 4th team overall. Samsung finished 12th team.
Trust House Cycle Classic
Final Classification
Date: 28/01/2007
Organiser: Jorge Sandoval
Rank BIB Code UCI Nom Prénom Equipe Temps/Ecart
Place Number UCI Code Surname First Name Team Time/Gap
1 1 NZL19810110 ROULSTON Hayden TRK 12 h 13'43''
2 77 AUS19800930 McCARTNEY Craig SAV á 1'56''
3 65 GBR19740309 TALBOT MatthewEXO á 3'28''
4 82 AUS19840823 WILSON Josh SOL á 4'35''
5 46 NZL19751216 REID Robin TRH á 5'05''
6 81 NZL19840208 LYTTLE Scott SOL á 5'17''
7 79 AUS19800609 PELL David SAV á 11'35''
8 2 NZL19720309 McCAULEY Gordon TRK á 11'50''
9 52 NZL19870802 SILLARS* Matt PRV á 13'09''
10 71 NZL19810527 SHARRATT BrendonUWA á 14'07''
34 50 NZL19840830 SPEER Richard TRH á 29'59''
57 59 NZL19870713 HUNN Logan SUM á 44'27'
Team Classification
Place Team Time
1 TRK 37 h 3'35''
2 SOL á 1'30''
3 SAV á 16'39''
4 TRH á 24'45'' Team Trust House
5 SUB á 27'24''
12 SUM á 1 h 08'09'' Team Samsung New Zealand
