Cycling: Bewley back for Tour break

MEDAL RIDE: SamBewley leads out the New Zealand men's pursuit team

After a busy year, double Olympic medallist Sam Bewley is taking a brief break to unwind.

The Rotorua-born cyclist spends most of the year in Spain these days, but is back home to celebrate the holidays with his family.

"My mum has recently moved to Napier so I'll be over there for a couple of days. But most of the time it's going to be around Rotorua, just taking it easy. I'll be going slow on the drinks and food, cutting back on the usual Kiwi summer I guess, because I'm going straight back into racing next month."

The last year was a bit of mixed bag for Bewley.

"The start of year was rough. I had a couple of injuries, a broken elbow in January and I was off for a bit after I had surgery on my hand in April."

He was also unexpectedly overlooked for selection for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the only one of New Zealand's six riders with World Tour contracts to miss selection. The later half of the year was better, and Bewley was pleased with the performance of his team, Orica-GreenEdge.

"[The year] finished off well with the Tour of Spain. One of the guys on the team won a stage, so I think that was a pretty successful result."

The New Year brings the chance to do it all again, and Bewley hopes to further improve his personal bests.

"It'll be my sixth year as a professional cyclist, so I understand racing and my body better. So I can prepare smarter and be really ready for the tours."

Bewley's schedule will be much the same as this year.

"A similar race programme anyway, hopefully without the injuries. I'm starting early, heading down to Christchurch for the Elite Nationals road race in January, and then straight over to Adelaide for the Tour Down Under.

"I'm going to be keeping busy with training and touring through the year and finish up with the Tour of Spain again."