Nelson's Jones Leads 70th Tour Of Southland

Nelson’s Cameron Jones has made a seamless transition from the knobbly tyres to skinny ones to claim the orange jersey on the opening day of the 70th SBS Bank Tour of Southland.

The professional mountainbiker, fresh off a win in the Whaka 100 marathon in Rotorua last weekend, is part of a strong Advanced Personnel team which has grand designs for this historic edition of New Zealand’s grand tour.

Jones’ team won the prologue, a 4.2km team time trial around Queens Park in Invercargill, before backing up to finish second to Australian Max Campbell (Macaulay Ford-GoodTech) in the 42km street race.

“Everyone rode super well in the prologue and we decided to share the jerseys around today,” Jones said.

“I didn’t really look back for a couple of laps once we got the break and the idea was mainly just to stay safe and away from all the carnage. When I looked back with two laps to go and we had a good gap I started to save a bit for the last lap in case they started coming back, but it was pretty comfortable in the end.”

Jones leads by 13sec from Campbell, with Wanaka’s Sam Ritchie (PowerNet) in third place and Matthew Wilson, runner up for the past two years, in fifth place overall.

“It’s nice to have a little bit of a lead and have all the jerseys in the team. We’ve got lots of ambitions as a team, including keeping the (general classification),” Jones said.

“Growing up this was always the race to do. I did it a couple of times a few years ago, so to come back and be more on the dealing than the receiving end of the pain is a lot of fun and I look forward to a bit more of that this week.”

Campbell was almost incredulous at taking out the street race stage, expecting all the time that the peloton would slice their way through the blustery conditions. Just as his moustache started to tremble, the finish line came into sight and he realised that hope still lived.

“I didn’t really go with any moves all day and then I just slipped off the front. I got across and a few guys stayed, a few guys dropped off and then it was just myself and (Jones) going into the last lap,” he said.

“I heard we had 40sec but I didn’t think we’d be able to stay away until a couple of km to go. I was getting worried when I started to feel the legs fade, but I got out of the saddle and had another go and managed to get over the line first, so stoked with that.”

Going into the stage without a firm strategy paid dividends, Campbell, who leads the Sprint Ace standings, said.

“We went pretty decent in the teams time trial and we didn’t really have a detailed plan for today, but it worked out better in the end that we had a bit of a free rein to just race in the moment.

“I’m still sort of processing it because I didn’t expect to be here, but I’m more than stoked. I’ve missed out the last couple of years so it’s great to be back and I couldn’t ask for a better way to get back into it.”

Ollie Jones, riding his 11th Southland tour and his 10th in a row for PowerNet, holds the King of the Mountain jersey. Advanced Personnel leads the teams classification and has Kyle Aitken in the under 23 jersey and Nathan Bunn in the over 35 shirt.

Team Brennan’s Julian Baudry was judged Most Combative for the day.

The historic nature of this year’s tour was celebrated throughout the day at Gala St, with 16 past tour champions and other famous names of the event’s past included in the festivities.

This year’s peloton can expect more of the old school conditions the tour has become famous for, with today’s blustery weather making way for gale winds tomorrow.

Campbell said his team had been preparing for a challenging forecast.

“We’ve looked at it and the expectation is just for something a little bit miserable every day.”