Cycling: Some Roxsolt rubs off on Ruby

STILL STANDING: Ruby Livingstone after overcoming last night's southerlies on the heels of last week's cold to win the criterium crown in Napier. PHOTO/Paul Taylor

SHE isn't going to pass off as a European any time soon but you can say a fair bit of Roxsolt has rubbed off on Kiwi professional rider Ruby Livingstone.

"It's hard in a different part of the world where the language is a huge barrier like culture, food and lifestyle which has a big impact on how it all goes and how you handle it," said the Aucklander after winning the Black Barn Vineyards Criterium last night along Napier's 1.1km Marine Parade circuit, in the build up to start the Hawke's Bay Summer Cycling Carnival.

But the language barrier doesn't matter, as such, to Livingstone because the dialect of cycling is universal.

"You learn how the Europeans work and what they need so you just pick it up from there," said the Venerdi Bread and Bodyneed Sports Ponsoby Clinic-sponsored athlete who rides for the Roxsolt Attaquer team.

Billed as an entree to the main course, the Elite National Road Racing Championship starting tomorrow, the criterium last night offered sprint laps every 10 minutes but it was reduced from 45 minutes to an under-20 minute affair with three laps to go due to inclement weather.

The slap in the face came from the southerlies, which gave all the top grade riders a jolt after it took hold about half an hour before their races started around 8.30pm.

"I knew once the sun was going to go down, it was going to be pretty chilly and the wind would keep picking up and picking up," said Livingstone, who sees herself as an endurance allrounder rather than a sprinter after the other five elite female riders kept her honest.

"The benefit, I think, is to go to bed earlier," said the jovial 23-year-old who resisted the temptation to give in to solo breaks.

It was hard to be a lone ranger, she said, unless one possessed pursuit skills but none did although she took advantage of the tailwind as a lighter rider.

When push came to shove, Livingstone decided she had to surge ahead of the rest of the girls to hold out the fort.

Remarkably she had shrugged off a cold from last week and will now gauge her worth on Saturday.

"I felt quite sick last week. You know, I had this cold and I was trying to shrug it off and then I had a couple of hour-long rides and then crashing off to bed so I was just well enough to do this in time to open up the legs and lungs to wake myself up for Saturday."

Livingstone also injured her back after a rider took her out last year but through some rehabilitation she was definitely improving.

"Since March of 2016 it's been a hell of a lot better ... with training so I've been pretty lucky."

While it wasn't a national title, she was delighted to savour last night's outcome in trying conditions.

Livingstone laughed when asked if she would eventually hone that European killer instinct.

"Oh I don't know about that. You know, they are totally different to how I do things with my lifestyle and my culture so."

Livingstone cast her mind back to last year when, for about five months, it was baptism of fire but she understood the females there were simply saddle soldiers who were trying desperately to carve a niche in a cutthroat environment.

No doubt there were memorable genteel moments during a phase when she had a love-hate relationship with her bike that, at times, left her revisiting her constitution.

"I made some really good friends with some Italian teammates from 2015, so yeah."

In the men's elite field of 10, Ryan Christensen, of Hamilton, claimed the non-national bragging rights from the Cambridge-based pair of Logan Griffin and Bay-born Luke Mudgway.

"It was a bit of cat and mouse in the peloton which let us go for a few more seconds," said the 20-year-old who revealed the buffeting southerlies made the back straight a slog-fest.

Christensen has been flirting with a national crown with top-five finishes to date so he will take confidence and venom in his quads and calf muscles for a podium chance among 120 riders and a four-hour affair at the weekend.