Cycling: Gough using Bay nationals as platform

HOME FRONT: Regan Gough is building a base for his world champion track pursuits during next week's nationals in Hawke's Bay. PHOTO/Warren Buckland

BELIEVE it or not, world champion team pursuit track cyclist Regan Gough is going to compete in his first nationals in Hawke's Bay next week.

"I've never actually done a nationals before," says Gough, of Waipukurau, before the three-day Big Save Elite Road National Championship begins on Friday next week.

That's because it's a rare occasionwhen the 19-year-old has become eligible for the event, which this year shifts from Christchurch to become part of a Summer Cycling Carnival in the Bay. Before that he was a junior.

"For the next four years I'll definitely have a lot more competition," he says as he prepares to compete in the under-23 time-trial category and the 180km road race category that will embrace a "one-and-a-half big loop of Puketpu" before Napier Hill beckons twice in a street circuit that will culminate at Marine Parade.

But for Gough the nationals here "isn't 100 per cent where my focus is" but it's more of a build up for his track commitments early next year.

He earned a well-deserved break after the second World Cup early this month at Cambridge.

"I've been slowly building up for a week and a half so, hopefully, it'll be enough. I know it's not an ideal build up but it should be good," says the teenager, who has been averaging around the early 20-hour mark in his road race workouts in his hometown.

The Ramblers Cycling Club member, who receives coaching from Ivar Hopman, is relishing the fresh air and scenery "for a change" from the velodrome.

"I've been on the [national road race] course a few times and know it pretty well so it's good to know what to expect."

The national championship starts with the time trials at Church Rd on Friday, January 8, with the elite women's road race over 117km, including 4.5 loops of the inner-city course on Saturday, January 9, and the elite and under-23 men's race on Sunday over 180km with 7.5 laps in the Napier CBD.

Gough is up against "some quick guys" in the time-trial and expects 2014 national champion Hayden McCormick (Waikato/BOP) to give everyone a run for their money.

In the road race, Europe-based pro Hamish Schreurs, of Canterbury, will defend his under-23 crown in a field that includes McCormick and Gough's fellow world champion team pursuit track rider, Dylan Kennett, as well as cousin and teammate Fraser Gough.

Regan Gough, who also is an Avanti IsoWhey Sports team member with Fraser, says it's too early to predict what role he will assume in the peloton for his other teammates - Liam Aitcheson, of Alexandra, and Joseph Cooper, of Wellington, who is the reigning open road race champion.

However, he is willing to hang his lungs out to ensure the gluteals, quads and calf muscles work for the collective.

"I may help them and my race may be lost or other people may help me so that's how the cookie crumbles in cycling, I guess," he says, mindful Cooper is capable of defending his title.

Gough is glad he isn't, akin to other world teammates, competing at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Hong Kong on January 16-17.

"I prefer to stay here and do a little bit more ... and build a base for early next year," he says, preferring the more docile heat of New Zealand to heat and humidity of Hong Kong.

Gough, who was eligible for the nationals last year but couldn't make it because he was competing in Cali, Colombia, with fellow national representatives, will head back to do some track training in Cambridge for a few weeks before setting his sights on the road-race UCI tour in Manawatu late next month.

He sees the track and road races as separate beasts - the former is short with sharp intensity while the latter demands endurance. However, the road complements track with stamina and fitness.