"Hey you all. After my recent win in the Philip Island GP, the guys from Peloton Café asked me express my feelings. I'm usually not the kind of guy to write a blog - in fact I'm more into talking than writing in general - but hey, a win is a great reason for an exception.

So I'm Nick, the sole Sydney-based cyclist in the Target Trek-squad, and I started competitive racing in 2010. My ambition is to confirm Target Trek as one of the nation’s top teams in this year’s National Road Series and I have a win in Melbourne to Warrnambool Classic in my sights this October."


Crossing the line first - always a great feeling!

"Therefore it's great to know that I'm capable of taking out a flat classic! Even though if it ain't a NRS-event, but I know that I'm able to find the right position for a final sprint!

And of course a win like that is always something special. The moment when I realized that I would beat Nicolas Sanderson in the sprint to the line.. man, it felt awesome. I hope to repeat a victory like this in the NRS as well. The Philip Island GP Circuit will be part of the Tour of Gippsland, so this may be a great place to do so, right?!"

Adelaide Tour (Category 2)

Adelaide Tour will be held for the first time in South Australia, May 24-26 2013. The three stage event will be part of the Subaru National Road Series (NRS). The Cycling Australia and Cycling South Australia endorsed Tour will be raced in the Campbelltown City Council area and Adelaide Hills region.

All three stages are rated as flat, while the 2nd stage will definitely hurt some pure sprinters' legs. The short but steep climbs (10% max) could even favour a strong finishing puncheur. Given the flat road races won't be as selective as hilly stages, the opening TTT may be crucial for the overall: if a teams manages to dominate here, it can expect a points haul.

The TTT and Kangaroo Creek Reservoir..
Stage Two features two short gravel-sectors..

Startlist/


*Nathan Earle will start for Huon, replacing Ben Dyball

Adelaide Tour (Stage 1, TTT, 20km)

The opening TTT of the Adelaide Tour can already be the crucial stage here: given that the two remaining stages are rated as flat (with some difficulties though), a dominating team is likely to get at least most of their riders in a great GC-position.


The Lightsview Cyling Team is one of three South Australian wildcard teams and aiming for some surprising success thanks to their knowledge of the area. They start early and do well:

provisional 2nd behind Oz Cycling: + 15".


Huon-Genesys won the TTT in recent Tour of Toowoomba and may be the top-favorites for events like that. It's definitely a great chance for NRS overall contenders like Jack Haig or Nathan Earle, who crosses the finish-line as first today..

..and taking the provisional lead! 28'32", beating Oz by 20 seconds!


Drapac will hope for defending NRS-champion and top-sprinter Luke Davison to shine in Adelaide. By finishing high in the TTT, he may even have a chance for a Top-10 in GC.. a tough challenge, but possible:

Finish: + 28".


With Kerby, Jamieson and Finning Jayco/Apollo is a promising TT-squad and they deliver today:

Finish: + 20" as provisional 3rd.


Budget-Forklifts and new NRS-leader Mark O'Brien will try to defend this lead in the rankings. It's definitely not the best profiles for O'Brien here in Adelaide, but a good TTT could also benefit some climbers:

Finish: + 24" as 4th so far.


Satalyst Giant Racing and their former NRS-leaders Adam Semple or Paul Van der Ploeg finish within the same time as Budget:

Provisional 5th with + 24".

In the meantime, GPM Data#3 managed to take the 2nd place with 18" on Genesys! A strong and rather surprising performance and great news for the team, which lined up with two promising sprinters in Scott Law and Caleb Jones! Especially Law can hope for some bonus seconds in the remaining stages.


Another local team concludes today's TTT: Euride Racing know this area quite well, as they spend hours of training here. With Harry Carpenter and Miles Scotson, the team has at least two riders, who already proved their TT-skills this year. Anyway, they struggle:

+ 32" and no chance to beat today's winning team Huon-Genesys! A special day for Nathan Earle, who takes the first GC-lead here. Is this his chance to fight back in the NRS? The Tasmanian had two rather disappointing races recently, but he and his team definitely delivered today. Now we will have to see, what changes in GC the two other stags will bring!

miggi133 wrote:
Why wasnt obrien wearing the NRS Leader jersey? Im pretty sure I spooted van der ploeg or semple with it in the tour of toooooooooooo so and so (I still cant spell the name of that race )

Adelaide Tour (Stage 2, Flat, 155km)

The 2nd day of the Adelaide Tour and the racing continues with the Stuart O'Grady Road Race, starting and finishing at "Bird in Hand Winery". While the stage is rated flat, one may notice that it's quite a tricky one. With a slightly ascending finish and some climbs on the 3-laps-circuit, there's definitely stuff for some unexpected action!


And here we go: Adam Semple (Satalyst) was one of several riders trying to break clear early! It was a chaotic start into the day, which would make it hard to take control of the race, even with such a prominent name trying to join a break..


Semple managed to be part of a first group going clear! As 31st in GC (+ 0.24) he was one of several in this break with a similar disadvantage on race-leader Earle. 6 riders led by 45" with 115km left:

Semple (Satalyst)
Rendall (African Wildlife)
Bayly (search2retain)
Hall (Bianchi)
Kent-Spark (Target)
Van Hout (Lightsview)


The escapees grew their lead to more than 2 minutes, with Semple sprinting for some valuable bonus seconds! That might have been his initial plan, but of course joining a break means always hoping for staying clear..


..same hopes count for late attacks, especially on a tricky profile like today's:

Goesinnen (Drapac)
and Paul Van der Ploeg (Satalyst)

attack the chasing bunch (still 1.20 in arrears) with 20km to go! So Satalyst is going all-in with both of their leaders escaping!


It's now just 10km to go and the two late attackers caught up to the early escapees quickly.

On the steepest climb (one of two gravel sectors), Goesinnen and Van der Ploeg easily drop the breakaway, now leading by 1.40 on the bunch! A real chance?


At least Huon-Genesys finally did everything to prevent those two going for the stage and valuable seconds:

with only 3km remaining, Genesys powers down a final descent, cutting down the gap to only 35"! The early break has been caught in the meantime.


As Van der Ploeg and Goesinnen kick off the sprint, they hold on to a 20"-gap, with the road ascending for the final 700metres!

Paul Van der Ploeg already led the NRS this years (thanks to winning the National Herald Sun Tour and his great allround-sprint skills), so he's of course looking strong on a finish like today's. But also Goesinnen (winner of the brutal Melbourne to Warrnambool-classic last year) knows how to sprint..


With only a few moments left, it's looking very good for the two! The sprinting bunch closes up, but is too far behind to join the leading duo in their sprint for victory..

..and the route definitely made for some surprises: no pure sprinter managed to stay at the front, it's Neil Van der Ploeg (search2), Donnelly/Haig (Genesys) and Alex Wohler (Budget) being a few metres behind Goesinnen.


Paul Van der Ploeg takes out the stage! And it's yet another "double" for the Van der Ploegs, as Neil had a super-strong finish for 2nd. A well deserved 3rd for Goesinnen completes the podium.

Most of the pack managed to finish within the same time, so we've only some minor changes in GC: Satalyst is definitely today's winner, as both Van der Ploeg (5th) and Semple (6th) collected nice bonus seconds to enter the Top-10. Aaron Donnelly takes the race-lead from teammate Earle, thanks to the better stage-finishes as 4th today.

Adelaide Tour (Stage 3, Flat, 53km)

The Mike Turtur Kermesse concludes this rather short stage-race in and around Adelaide. The criterium features yet another tricky uphill-finish and again we're looking forward to wether the sprinters or the stage-racers will take out the stage. And will anyone be able to break Huon-Genesys' dominance in GC? Like the Van der Ploegs did yesterday?


Team Lightsview did pretty well by joining yesterday's breakaway, the wildcard team showed their colors once again today: O'Callaghan was the first to attack.


A short-lived attempt though, as he was reeled in after the first lap. 6 other riders now tried their luck, including

Nathan Elliott (Target) and
Harry Carpenter (Euride)!

Two quite strong puncheurs and Elliott sprinted for the KoM-lead today!


No chance for the breakaway to win the stage tough: especially search2retain and Drapac pulled the string hard to swallow the escaping group!


And we're going for another bunch-sprint, but this time the sprint-favorites did their best to stay at the front:

NRS-champion Luke Davison (Drapac) is led by teammate Palmer, with yesterday's winner Paul and 2nd Neil Van der Ploeg also in the mix!Adam Semple (in green) and Van Hout (Lightsview) kicked early and suffer already..


Davison now accelerates with the line approaching, closing up to Paul Van der Ploeg! Behind it's Neil Van der Ploeg and also Scott Law (GPM) moving forward!


But it's a dominating win for Davison, his first in 2013! Great work by teammate Palmer (8th) also.

Ben Grenda (Oz) had the fastest finish to sprint for 2nd, ahead of Neil Van der Ploeg, Law and Paul Van der Ploeg! Good news for Grenda, who jumps onto GC's 6th thanks to this bonus seconds and a strong TTT by his team.


No change in GC's Top-4 though: Aaron Donnelly wins the Adelaide Tour ahead of his teammates Earle, Haig and Clements. He simply was the team strongest in the two flat stages. Also huge news for Earle/Haig, Paul Van der Ploeg (5th) and Semple (7th), who score valuable points as the so far most serious NRS-contenders!


Nathan Elliott takes out the KoM-competition thanks to collecting 10 points on final day.

Time for another update on the rankings and the 2nd category race in Adelaide proved to be a great step for Huon-Genesys! Haig (once again) scored heavy points, as well as Donnelly, who jumps onto the provisional NRS-podium thanks to his GC-win! Also Earle finally scored points again, staying in the mix..

But also Adam Semple made Adelaide a success: his breakaway on 2nd day made him jump into GC's Top-10 and this makes him re-take the NRS-lead.. Mark O'Brien failed to score any points in Adelaide, but expect him to be stronger in the more mountainous North Western Tour!

Oz's Ben Grenda is the first sprinter to enter the Top-10 on the individual rankings. Also defending NRS-champion Davison finally proved his speed, so as soon as we hit the more flat races/classics, expect them to score higher than they did so far.

INDIVIDUAL RANKINGS/

Rk	Name	Team	Pts
1	Adam Semple	Satalyst Giant Racing Team	178
2	Jack Haig	Huon Salmon-Genesys	167
3	Aaron Donnelly	Huon Salmon-Genesys	162
4	Paul Van der Ploeg	Satalyst Giant Racing Team	157
5	Mark O'Brien	Budget Forklifts	151
6	Nathan Earle	Huon Salmon-Genesys	128
7	Neil Van der Ploeg	search2retain p/b health.com.au	115
8	Sam Rutherford	GPM Data#3	87
9	Eric Sheppard	search2retain p/b health.com.au	60
10	Ben Grenda	Oz Cycling Development Team	55
11	Harry Carpenter	Euride Racing	53
12	Marc Williams	Budget Forklifts	50
	Michael Cupitt	Budget Forklifts	50
14	Alex Clements	Huon Salmon-Genesys	45
15	Darren Lapthorne	Drapac Cycling	40
16	Bernard Sulzberger	Drapac Cycling	33
17	Bradley Hall	Satalyst Giant Racing Team	25
	Chris Jory	GPM Data#3	25
19	James Hepburn	GPM Data#3	21
20	Scott Law	GPM Data#3	20
	Lachlan Norris	Jayco/Apollo VIS	20

TEAMS RANKINGS/

Rk	Team	Pts
1	Huon Salmon-Genesys Wealth Advisers Pro Cycling Team	355
2	Budget Forklifts	343
3	Satalyst Giant Racing Team	296
4	GPM Data#3	237
5	Drapac Cycling	232
6	search2retain p/b health.com.au	226
7	Jayco/Apollo VIS Men’s Road Team	164
8	Euride Racing	116
9	African Wildlife Safaris Cycling Team	111
10	Oz Cycling Development Team	108
11	Target Trek Racing Team	50
	Bianchi Lotto Arbitrage	50
13	Racing Kangaroos Cycling Development Program	26
14	Veneziano Blefari Cycling Team	25
15	Data#3 Cisco Racing Team	20
	Downer EDI Mining National Cycling Team	20
	Suzuki Bontrager	20
18	SUVelo Racing	15
19	Pro Team Downunder	5