KEY POINTS:
Defending champion Hayden Roulston emerged from the shadows of the peloton for his first stage win of the Wellington Cycling Classic in Masterton yesterday to claim the yellow race leader's jersey from teammate Gordon McCauley.
The Trek-Zookeepers Cafe rider broke away from a leading bunch of eight riders
with about 52km remaining on the fourth stage and set a withering pace to the finish, leaving his rivals gasping in his wake.
He clocked 3h 44m 53s for the 158km journey from Masterton to Pahiatua and back.
Second was teammate Marc Ryan, 2m 59s behind, with third claimed by Exodus Gym's Matthew Talbot in the same time.
Recovering from injuries sustained in a training crash just over a fortnight ago, Roulston began yesterday with eight riders ahead of him on general classification and trailing McCauley by 4m 22s.
He ended the day first on general classification with an overall time of 7h 39m 1s, with Australian Craig McCartney, of Savings & Loans, 2s behind in second and expatriate New Zealander Talbot in third, another 29s back.
London-based Talbot races on a British licence.
McCauley was 39th yesterday, more than 15 minutes behind, dropping him to 13th in the standings and just over 11 minutes behind Roulston on general classification.
Roulston was in a group of 13 who made the first attack, while another six, including Subway's Logan Hutchings and Zookeepers' Marc Ryan, joined the lead group that included four Savings & Loans riders - McCartney, Brett Aitken, Will Dickenson and Simon Pearson.
The enlarged group steadily built their lead over the peloton to about 5 minutes in just 50km.
From there it became clear there was no interest from McCauley to defend the yellow jersey he had taken by winning Thursday's second stage.
Zookeepers team manager Ron Cheatley said it was one of his team's plans to have McCauley buried in the peloton for the duration of the race.
"As it worked out, Gordy was a pretty good decoy with the [lead] group going away like that," Cheatley said.
Because "they got all excited" and had to work hard to put time and distance on McCauley "that meant Roly [Roulston] could just cruise and when the time was right, he went".
Of McCauley's slide down the field, Cheatley said: "Sometimes you have to play the team game; it's not an individual game.
"Every dog has its day and Gordy's had a lot of glory so far. He'll bounce back from this one."
Cheatley said Roulston was a pretty special rider. "What he did today against a class group of riders, to ride away like that ... it's not something many people can do."
Roulston said he wasn't thinking about the yellow jersey.
"I was just trying to put as much time as I could between me and whoever it was who was higher on gc [in the leading group]."
Once he saw the others in the lead group tiring and "mucking around" he decided to attack.
He felt he had been underdone coming into the tour after his training mishap.
"I didn't feel good, honestly. I'm still riding into this tour."
Today's fifth stage, 125km in and around Masterton ending with a tortuous 11km climb up Admiral Hill, traditionally decides who will win the tour.
- NZPA