There was no sign of the anticipated sprint finish, instead Subway Avanti team rider Nick Lovegrove left everyone in his wake to comfortably win the Fred Ogle 110km road race.
The 29-year-old Counties Manukau rider, born and raised in Northland, was unchallenged over the last 45km of yesterday's race, which startedand finished at Mangakahia Sports Complex.
"I didn't intend to ride so far on my own, Lee [Johnstone] attacked about 5km into the race and I thought he looked pretty good so I went with him as well as Sam Horn," he said.
Whangarei's Johnstone and last month's Hell of the North winner Sam Horn started to tail off from Lovegrove heading up Rushbrook Road when he decided to test the duo.
"I wasn't attacking but I rode past Lee pretty quickly to see what he would do, but he didn't follow so I rode 45km on my own, into a headwind for the rest of the way."
Lovegrove claimed the Fred Ogle Memorial Trophy with his time of 2h 53m and 29s, four minutes ahead of Johnstone, who said he found the ride "horrible".
"Nick passed me up the hill and I just couldn't hang on.
"From there I went as hard as I could to stay in front of the bunch," Johnstone said.
There was a sprint finish for third place, but Horn just pipped junior rider Matthew Markby in a time of 3h 20s.
Fresh from riding in the Tour of Southland where Subway Avanti had a stage win, and teammate Joe Cooper won the King of the Mountains, Lovegrove said his next mission was to improve on last year's fourth place at the annual 160km Around Taupo Cycle Race at the 2010 event at the end of this month. "We will have a strong team of about four or five guys at Taupo. I'm hoping to go better this year but as long as someone in the team goes well."
Following Taupo, Lovegrove will end his season in January with the elite national championships.
He will then have a short break before returning to ride for Subway, after signing with them for another year.
Meanwhile, in the women's 110km race, Chubby Hale was first home in 3h 05m 55s and picked up the Lynley McDonald Trophy for efforts. Miranda Jex-Blake was second in 3h 22m 19s, while Ben Johnstone won the 50km race in 1h 37m 05s.
