The Ramblers Hawke’s Bay Cycling Tour has ended with a mixture of winners spanning 60 years in age.
Run in the shadow of the five-day New Zealand with its field of international riders ending in Wellington, the two-day Hawke’s Bay Tour attracted 49 entries for three stages based in the Crownthorpe area and based at the Ohiti Station woolshed.
The B-grade general classification was dominated by experienced visiting rider Michael Black, 35, of Te Awamutu, with a margin of almost five minutes up on the second placegetter, but it was a much closer affair in the C-grade, which attracted 24 riders. In a battle of the teenagers, Kyle Paris, of Cambridge, won by 0.74sec from Olly Taylor after more than five hours of racing across the stages.
The E-grade was a triumph for 74-year-old Ray Hewlett, of Rotorua, who won by just 7.09sec from runner-up Garry Saunders.
Hawke’s Bay Today photographer Paul Taylor ventured out for a morning in the countryside to keep up with some of the action.
