It's Bleasdale by a whisker

TONY BLEASDALE won the opening handicapped stage of the Velo Club's four-day Easter Stage Race contested over four laps of the hilly reservoir circuit. With riders separated into groups according to ability the first group to start were given an initial advantage of some five minutes over the scratch group containing Bleasdale, Tobyn Horton and Rob Smart.

The Bleasdale group really had their work cut out having been given a deficit of a minute over the group in front of them, which included strong riders such as veteran Terry Wright, Commonwealth Games triathlete Alan Rowe, Stuart Le Tissier, Tim Holmes and Mike Dean.

But the three elite riders worked well together and realising the task ahead of them set a brutal pace in attempt to catch those who started ahead of them.

Their hard work paid off when they caught Wright's group and it was when the junction was made that Le Tissier and Rowe managed to latch onto the back of the scratch riders and work with them to catch the first group out on the road towards the end of the second lap.

By lap three the leading group consisted of just four riders, Bleasdale, Smart, Le Tissier and Rowe.

All four worked together to keep their advantage over the chasing riders until the climb of the reservoir on the final lap when Smart launched a blistering attack over the summit.

Bleasdale and Le Tissier anticipated the move and bridged the gap at the expense of Rowe who was dropped.

Approaching the finishing line for the final time it was Le Tissier who took the initiative, sprinting away.

After hesitating for a moment Bleasdale was first to react and having quickly closing the gap to Le Tissier sprinted around him.

Smart was closing in quickly, but Bleasdale just held on to take the victory by less than half-a-wheel from Smart with Le Tissier, finishing a few seconds down in third.

Rowe was the first veteran home in fourth place with Holmes just beating Wright for fifth followed by Mark Batiste.

The first woman home was Tracey Dowinton who rode well to finish comfortably in the top 20.