Kiwi's classic birthday present

Hayley Giddens didn't want to blow out some candles on a cake, she just wanted her front bike wheel ahead of everyone else's at the finish line.

The Wanganui professional, who is riding the America national racing circuit with her ISCorp Intelligentsia team, was victorious in the 100km Hillsboro-Roubaix Spring Classic in Illinois the previous Saturday on her 24th birthday.

Receiving one of the coveted "Brick" trophies at the top of the podium, Giddens said the road race is one of the largest in the American mid-west so winning it was a big deal.

Named after the well-known Paris-Roubaix race because they both have sections on cobblestones the first race of the US season was two 30-mile laps with some undulations, technical sections, a bit of gravel and cobblestones on the last 2-mile uphill run into the finish.

There were 32 starters and Giddens said everyone stayed pretty close which didn't make for the most exciting race.

"Nobody wanted to work. We'd attack, the field would work hard to catch the break, and then they'd sit up over and over.

"By the end of the first lap, it was pretty clear that a breakaway wasn't going to win."

Things closed up again when the woman riders let the men's group go by them, with her ISCorp team deciding the Kiwi should go for the finish.

"The girls got me into good position for the last climb and by the top, eight riders had a gap on the rest of the field.

"I hit the downhill section hard and the uphill section even harder.

"I led out the sprint and nobody was able to come around me."

Giddens said in 12 years of athletics and then cycling it had always been a goal to win a race on her birthday.

Her next assignment is the Tour of the Battenkill road race in New York on April 14, followed by tours in Arkansas, New Mexico and Missouri through to mid-May.