Rotorua cyclist Clinton Avery is one step away from achieving his professional contract dreams.
The 22-year-old national under-23 road and time-trial champion has been signed up to Lance Armstrong's Team RadioShack as a stagiaire for the next three months and becomes the third Kiwi in the squad and the second from
Rotorua.
Sam Bewley joined the team last year and New Zealand rep Jesse Sergeant is another recent addition. The team's mechanic is Rotorua's Craig Geater.
Avery's first outing will be in the Tour of Denmark which runs from August 4 to August 8.
"I'm not celebrating yet," Avery said from his base in Belgium.
"It's not my end goal but it's a step closer to it. The whole idea behind it is it's basically a trial. You get treated as part of the team and they want to see if you can cut it.
"The pressure is on, a lot."
He said he had interest from three other teams - Skil Shimano, HTC Columbia and Cervelo Test Team - who will also scrutinise his performance as a stagiaire for Team RadioShack.
"This can either work in my favour or go against me. At the moment they've all got impressions of me from results as an amateur but if I have a couple of bad races they might think I just got lucky.
"I know in my mind I can do it. I've raced in the Tour Down Under with the New Zealand team and that was hard but I can still be competitive."
The role of a stagiaire is to do what the team bosses want. For the Tour of Denmark that could mean fetching bottles from the support car and he won't adopt the "Kiwi cup" attitude he says some cyclists are guilty of.
"It's different in a team. A lot of Kiwi guys, especially when they get in the Kiwi team, will get to the start and not care where they finish as long as they're the first Kiwi home.
"It's not like that here. You ride to do what your team wants of you."
The Tour of Denmark team is likely to be young with Taylor Phinney the team leader. Bewley and Sergeant will also ride.
"If I go the way I'm going I'm relatively confident [of getting a contract].
"I'm excited about the tour but I don't know what I'm in for. This is all knew for me."
These past few months have been a bit of a success for Avery.
In his first tour, New Zealand's Trust House Cycle Classic, he worked hard to secure the tour win for his Cardno team leader Michael Torckler.
In March, when back in Europe, his second year with Belgian team PWS Eijssen, he won his second race of the international season with a powerful kick from a breakaway in the cobbled UCI1.2 Vlaamse Pijl race against many pro-tour riders.
In April, a crash at the Tryptic des Mont et Chateaux UCI2.2 halted a great tour where he beat Phinney (Trek Livestrong) in a time trial. He popped three ribs and four vertebrae.
Later that month Avery joined two breakaways one week apart. In the first at UCI1.2 Zillik Garlmaardene, which included many passes of a cobbled climb, his solo attack from the breakaway group was caught by the peloton within view of the finish.
The following weekend at the Prijs Stad Roeselaere, with two ascents of the Kemmelberg cobbled climb (average 4 per cent, maximum 22 per cent gradient), Avery made sure he wasn't caught. After working hard to bridge the peloton up to an early break, he kept going and eventually outsprinted his breakaway companions to take the victory.
The following weekend he was back on the podium, this time for 3rd place at the UCI 1.2 Erprijs Victor De Bruyne - Hoboken.
After the Tour of Denmark he expects to race the Tour du Poitou Charentes, in France from August 24 to 28.
Rotorua cyclist Clinton Avery is one step away from achieving his professional contract dreams.
The 22-year-old national under-23 road and time-trial champion has been signed up to Lance Armstrong's Team RadioShack as a stagiaire for the next three months and becomes the third Kiwi in the squad and the second from
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