Road cycling: Riders get a taste for the stage

A new cycling tour will be held near Rotorua this weekend - the Tour of the Bay of Plenty. Photo / Ben Fraser

A new cycling tour will get underway in Rotorua during Labour Weekend - the Tour of the Bay of Plenty.

The inaugural Tour of the Bay of Plenty cycling event begins tomorrow and runs until Monday.

The tour will cover 240km across four stages. Riders can choose to do one stage or complete the entire tour.

Organiser Shane Hooks said Rotorua was a perfect fit for the new cycling event.

"I think it always had the potential because of its centrality to the North Island cycling community and fantastic, quiet roads."

He said the tour was designed to give people a taste of stage racing, rather than provide a race for elite cyclists.

He was really happy with the number of people who had entered so far.

"I think we will be pretty close to that number of 300. I'm over the moon for the first year."

Hooks said about 170 riders were entered for the stage tour and they were expecting about 300 riders to line-up for Sunday's Bike the Lake stage.

Hooks said the participants would face the challenge of riding a long stage before backing it up the next day.

"Cycling has been described as chess on wheels," he said. "People will get to see what that means during the stage race."

The four stages are broken into a ride out to Matata (79.2km) and time trial (11.6km) on Saturday, followed by two laps of Lake Rotorua on Sunday. The final stage will be held on Monday and features a 68km ride around Waikite Valley.

There is also a starter tour on offer which features similar stages across shorter distances. All the racing will be based at the Holiday Inn, on Tryon St.

Between 80 and 90 per cent of riders would be coming from outside Rotorua, with the bulk of riders coming from Auckland.