Lyttle revels in Black magic

Scott Lyttle admits he surprised even himself with his consistently strong showings in the Trust House Cycle Classic last week.
Lyttle, the only Wairarapa rider on the five-day tour, was an integral part of the all-Kiwi Pure Black squad which won the team's event by some 16 minutes while, individually, he was sixth on general classification, runner-up for the King of the Mountains title and seventh in the sprint series.
Going into the Classic Lyttle had expressed optimism over the ability of Pure Black to defy the sceptics and win the team's trophy on what was their first serious hit-out in a year which will see them taking on the best professional outfits in places like Singapore, the United States, Japan and Mexico and all over Europe.
But he did have some concerns that a lack of hard racing after taking a break from the sport for university studies could impact adversely on his own performance, especially in a tour where climbs like that on Admiral's Hall at Gladstone on stage two were always going to ask serious questions about staying power.
"I knew I didn't have the kilometres in the legs that many of the other riders had and that had to be a bit of a worry ... I thought I might blow out at some part of it," he said.
But as it happened, Lyttle had no problems seeing out the five days and was actually looking forward to getting back into a full training mode when spoken to early yesterday morning.
"There aren't too many aches and pains and I still feel pretty fresh," he said. "I'm still nowhere near top shape but at least it's a good start."
For Lyttle, the most satisfying result from the Trust House Classic came in the team's event with so-called experts openly predicting Pure Black could struggle to make an impact because they were racing together as a team for the first time.
However, that proved to be anything but the case with the Kiwis taking their place at the top of the standings at the end of stage one and never being headed.
Lyttle was "absolutely delighted" with the way in which the Pure Black riders knitted together as a unit and he is adamant his own good results were as much due to that than anything else.
"We worked well together, better than anyone else," he said.
"Everybody was on the same wavelength, the game plan went pretty much the way we wanted it to."