Leading cyclist Sam Spokes proved too slick for his rivals in the latest round of the Tamworth Cycle Club Criterium series on Sunday.
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Spokes, 24, lined-up in his first event after the national road championships held in Victoria earlier this month and sizzled his way around Goddard’s Lane.
Warm conditions greeted the riders, who set a cracking tempo around the 22.4km layout.
Spokes was in vintage form and claimed the king of the mountain honour after completing one of the 28-laps consisting of 800m in an electric time of 57 seconds.
That mark broke the previous record owned by Ben Clark.
The rising star crossed the finish line first ahead of Ash Smith in the A-grade battle, with current series leader Mick Sherwood in third spot.
Sherwood leads the pointscore on 20 through seven events of the weekly popular series.
The B and C-grade divisions were combined on the day due to numbers.
Nick Chisholm took out the category with Joe Kelly riding well to place second and Rob Wright rounding out the podium placings.
One of the highlights of the day was the first-ever club race for Ann Buchan, who performed admirably.
The next round of the Criterium series is being staged on Sunday, with weekly races running right through until April.
Australian Caleb Ewan meanwhile powered to victory in Tuesday’s shortened Hostworks Stage 1 of the Santos Tour Down Under from the Adelaide suburb of Unley to Lyndoch.
The 22 year old ORICA-SCOTT rider edged out Dutchman Danny Van Poppel (Team SKY) and Irish cyclist Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) to win in a time of 3:24.18 after 118 kilometres of racing.
Midway through the racing organisers announced the stage distance would be reduced by 26.5 kilometres, or one lap of the finishing circuit, due to extreme heat with hot winds and soaring temperatures above 40 degrees making conditions challenging for the 133 riders in the opening stage of the six day race.
"I'm super happy to get that win because it was very tight in the end,” Ewan said after following up his victory in Sunday's People's Choice Classic.
"A lot of riders ran out of gas in the lead out in that last straight because there was a lot of head wind there," he explained.
"Many riders misjudged it and it was a super messy sprint."
Riding for the UniSA-Australia team, Armidale’s newly-crowned National U23 road champion Sam Jenner was the 72nd rider across the line after placing 48th in the Classic.
