November

Carter Jones put forth a valiant effort, but the Kiwi field was stacked against the BISSELL squad. As the Southland Times headlined in an article leading up to the final day, “Tour of Southland leader Jones has target on back.”

Jones had an outstanding time trial in the morning setting the third fastest time of 17:39 on the nearly 13km course. The time added another thirteen seconds to his lead over Mike Northey (Node 4 Subaru).

Carter started stage 8 seventeen seconds ahead of Northey. The cold and wet final stage was reduced from 87km to 79 km with the elimination of three of the finishing laps in Queens Park. Early in the stage, Calder Stewart’s Hayden Roulston and Michael Vink got away and Northey was able to jump across. The break totaling five left everything on the road to take yellow from Jones. The two Calder Stewart riders attacked the break with Roulston taking the stage win, and the duo  gained enough time to move into second and third overall. Northey finished seventeen seconds behind them to take the GC win. Carter fought incredibly hard and crossed with the chase group to finish fifth overall.

After an arduous day, Jones holds onto the overall lead and wears yellow heading into the final day at the Tour of Southland.

The tough 167km day was blown apart early when a four man break got free in the first 20km. The gap grew to four minutes as the peloton picked up the chase. BISSELL had some help from a few other teams interested in shutting down the lead group; however with 30km remaining, the chasers hit a strong crosswind. A split in the chase group left Carter on his own to defend, and he made a select group of eight chasers. Meanwhile, the lead group was reduced to only two as two fell off pace, and Daniel Barry (Node 4 Subaru) went on to beat break mate, Hayden Roulston (Calder Stewart), in a photo finish. With every man out for Carter, the attacks were continuous. After a strong defense, Carter crossed 25 seconds behind Mike Northey (Node 4 Subaru) who sits in second overall, and Carter now leads the GC by only four seconds. 

The final day is another double stage beginning with a 13km TT and wrapping up with a 93 km road race in the afternoon. Glen Mitchell is positive about Jones’ time trialing, “I’m confident in Carter’s ability, he definitely time trials very well. I don’t think he will lose any time, he could even gain a little bit. The guys have got six days of racing in their legs, so you get to a time trial and that’s pretty crucial.” It will be another hard road stage to defend against some very motivated riders, but if successful Carter could be only the third international winner of the race in its 56 year history.

Carter Jones takes the Tour of Southland Queen stage and becomes the GC leader with his solo victory on the mountain top finish in the Crowne Range.

The team’s plan for the longest stage of the tour was to do as little work as possible until  the final 10k and then lay down a punishing pace to set up Jones for the climb. Stage 5 got underway in Te Anau and a group of nine riders broke away eighteen kilometers into the day. The gap gradually grew to over four minutes before the serious chase began. With 20k remaining, the leaders were caught. Baldwin, Vennell, and Kyer pushed hard leading into the climb, and then Michael Torkler took control on the climb with Jones in tow. As Torkler drove up the climb, the lead group was reduced to six before Michael pulled off. Carter pushed harder again and with 100m to the line he went clear to take the solo win. “My team mates worked as hard as they could so with 1km to go, I thought ‘they did all of that work for me so I’ve got to give it a shot’. I’ve got good legs, and it worked out,” Jones said.

The day did not come without sacrifice as Paddy Bevin had to withdraw mid-race due to a persistent lung infection. Mitchell talked about the day and protecting the overall, “it was a great day for the team although Paddy will be missed as we defend the GC in stage 6.”