Scott Lyttle says his Team Solway can be proud of their efforts in the Trust House Cycle Classic which drew to a close with the criterium in Wellington yesterday.
Going into that fifth and final stage Team Solway was sitting second in the team's classification just 2min 40s down on the
leaders, the Cardno-sponsored team, and still in with an outside chance of taking the overall honours.
Lyttle, from Masterton, said the Team Solway strategy throughout the tour had been to ride aggressively and to make full use of the talents of proven performers like Heath Blackgrove, Jeremy Yates, Logan Hutchings, Westley Gough, and, of course, Lyttle himself.
"We were always looking to dominate, to leave nothing in the tank, and everybody has given 100 per cent," he said. "Whether we are first or second we can be proud of what we have done, we've given it a decent shot."
Lyttle admits he went into this year's tour a little unsure as to his own readiness for such a testing assignment and he was "pretty happy" to be 24th on the general classification heading into the criterium.
That placed him third best of the Team Solway riders, behind Blackgrove (4th) and Yates (7th) and ahead of Gough (29th) and Hutchings (43rd)
Lyttle said he had been part of breakaway groups on both the first and third stages and while he wasn't quite able to fill a major placing on either occasion he had at least been part of the action at, or near, the front of the field.
"You always like to do better but overall I'm pretty happy with the way things have gone...it could have been a lot worse," he said.
