Gear failure snaps Johnstone's hopes

Lee Johnstone's attempt to defend his 2010 win in the seven-day Lion Foundation Wellington to Auckland cycle challenge ended in mechanical failure on the tour's final day.
Whangarei's Johnstone was forced to withdraw during the penultimate stage from Hamilton to Glen Murray on Saturday when his gear mechanism broke, leaving him stranded.
"I was totally gutted but there was nothing I could do ... you would've needed hours in the pits to fix it, so there was no chance of continuing when it happened on the road," he said.
It was a big blow for Johnstone, who was in an unbeatable position to win the "sprint ace" competition within the tour, where a rider goes for sprint points along each of the 13 stages of the tour. During the course of the competition, the rider accumulates points to win the green sprint jersey.
He had already accumulated three stage wins and three second placings on other stages.
Johnstone, along with Dargaville's Barry Ruddell, Hamilton's Rod Carpenter and Thames' Michael Jones, were riding for the Whangarei MyBIKE team.
The four went into the race with the aim of bringing home the winner's yellow jersey. The plan was to see how the riders were placed after the first few days then work together with the team to achieve personal objectives.
"There was a new team dynamic on the tour this year and we had to work together to compensate for that. It became more like chess on wheels really," he said.
Carpenter broke away early on one day to take a stage win into his hometown with the MyBike team covering behind. Michael Jones took two stages with carefully planned breakaways midway the race by the MyBike team aimed at launching him onto the podium for the overall tour.
Ruddell was the workhorse of the team and set up sprint lead outs for Johnstone and setting up breakaways to soften the opposition.
With Johnstone out of the tour on the last day, Jones was second place on points in the sprint competition and was able to move up to win the green jersey sprint competition and finish third overall.
The race was won by 21-year-old Tom Francis of Wanganui. Two other riders from Whangarei, Tom Andrews and Mathew Markby, also rode impressively with Markby taking out the bunch sprint in the final stage into Pukekohe on Saturday.
The race had 144 starters from all over the country with a few Australians joining in the event's fourth year.
Johnstone said the event is growing in popularity and this year included such legends as Jack Swart, one of New Zealand's best riders of the late 1970s and 1980s, and his younger brother Steven, who is a veteran of three Tour De France riding in Lance Armstrong's Motorola team through the 1990s.