KEY POINTS:
Hayden Roulston won the Wellington Cycling Classic as his Trek-Zookeepers Cafe team dominated the fifth and final day of the tour yesterday.
Roulston won the sixth stage, a 12km time trial at Scorching Bay, in the morning, and teammate Gordon McCauley the 40km criterium at Petone in the afternoon.
This gave their team victory in five of the tour's seven stages.
They snatched the yellow jersey through their junior world champion pursuiter Sam Bewley on the first day and never lost it. It was passed to McCauley on the second day and then to Roulston who held it to the end.
Roulston, who won the tour riding with Subway last year, became the first since Brian Fowler - who won four times from 1989-1992 - to score back-to-back wins.
"My team were the highlight of the race for me," Roulston said.
"They are a top bunch of guys and henchmen - I wouldn't have been able to do it without them."
Roulston was delighted a great week could be capped with McCauley's criterium win.
"In stage four [on Friday] when the break went up the road and I went with it, I thought it was going to be a disaster," he said.
"I was lucky that I had a little in reserve and I was able to do what I did [ride solo 50km for the stage win] because otherwise there would have been some harsh words said at the team meeting. The way it turned out it's been pretty good."
Roulston, who crashed three weeks ago, said he had a lot of pain in the wrist from gripping the handlebars on the last day and split his little finger slightly.
"It's not healed enough for this sort of stuff so I'm lucky to get through it."
There was a slight chance for Savings & Loans' Craig McCartney - second overall and 55s behind Roulston - to pull the rug out from under the Zookeepers in the time trial.
But Roulston was untroubled as he clocked 15m 37s at an average speed of 46.1km/h at Scorching Bay to win the stage.
McCartney was 15th, 1m 01s down on Roulston in the time trial, and the Australian's challenge was squashed.
The criterium became academic after that as the Zookeepers controlled the race from the start, allowing McCauley to attack with 25m to go.
Trust House's Jeremy Vennell, a better climber than a sprinter, went with him and McCauley knew he had the legs to win the sprint at the end.
"I am always confident I can hold on and last for the win," McCauley said.
'When I attack, I attack 100 per cent and I believe in my chances to win."
McCauley said he had been disappointed to have lost the yellow jersey but glad it went to a mate, Roulston.
"Roly had two stage wins and I had to even the score today.
"[With] the team having the race under control I thought I might as well see if I could sneak off the front.
"They let me go and Jeremy Vennell came with me and I knew I had pretty much the measure of him."
Zookeepers manager Ron Cheatley was full of praise for the younger members of his team - Bewley, Marc Ryan and national under-23 time trial and road race champion, Matthew Haydock.
"We had three young guys who had to absolutely ride as hard as they possibly could to defend the yellow jersey and those three kids, only 19-20 years of age, are absolutely smashed.
"If they hadn't done the work they did, it wouldn't have been set up for Hayden and Gordy."
- NZPA
