Travis Meyer

thunder

Travis triumphs in New Zealand

Travis Meyer (SouthAustralia.Com AIS) adds another stage win
Photo ©: Bruce Pool
SouthAustralia.com-AIS new recruit Travis Meyer has won overall honours in the Trust House Classic/Tour of Wellington with a dominant performance that included two stage wins. The 18 year-old West Australian also won the Under 23 title, finished third in the sprint classification and led SouthAustralia.com-AIS to victory in the team's title.

Meyer finished the 580km event with a total race time of 14:27.09, 1.51 minutes clear of second placed Robin Reid (Delmaine Foods) and more than five minutes faster than compatriot David Pell (Savings & Loans). He took over the race lead on the second day of the five day, seven stage event and held it all the way to the end.

"In all my 21 years doing the Tour of Wellington, I have never seen a rider like him," said race director Jorge Sandoval. "He may never realise what he did in this country this week. He put cycling on the map."

Meyer, who has won five Junior World Championship titles on the track in the past two years, went into the final stage with a margin that should have allowed him to coast to victory, but he had other ideas. The teenager raced the one hour plus three laps of the 750m circuit with a vengeance, launching two solo attacks and lapping all bar six of the 70-strong field.

"I wanted to ride strong to show I was the true winner," said Meyer, who became the youngest ever tour winner. "I didn't expect to win like that but I wanted a hard race.

"It's unbelievable to have won a great, hard tour and to beat some of these guys in my first major one is just fantastic," he said.

But there was no time for celebration as Meyer was up at 3am this morning for an early flight back to Sydney for this week's Australian Track Cycling Championships.

Jono L

So you'll forgive now because I couldn't hold his wheel in Tour of Canberra last year?

thunder

nah.

classic will prolly say you are a soft cnut!

Crankyfeet

Do you know anything else about this kid thunder? Like a take on where his relative strengths are... Or is it too early to tell?

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thunder

the kid won Australian jnr track cyclist of the year, think he came in the top 10 in jnr Worlds RR, which is only 7 days after the track (you try to peak for both! impossible).

Won 5 gold over 2 years at World jnr track.

About the same time as Mcgee over the 3km jnr pursuit. But that is arbitrary, was the track fast, etc, new technology versus 14 years ago.

Not sure about who is the better brother. Travis or Cameron. They are good!

Howard and O'Shea and Bobridge are pretty damn good too.

Crankyfeet

Thanks for the compliment.. but I have to be honest and say that I would struggle to peak for just one...

Interestingly... one of the reports mentions that as a junior.. he hasn't been allowed to race over 120km in a single race/stage. So this is his first time apparently... in competition. I didn't know about that restriction on juniors. Is it just an Australian restriction?

Travis winning the Wellingon Classic... [photo: Getty Images] and on the track two years ago as a 16 yr old [photo: Stewart Stockdale]

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Jono L

Everything, period.

classic1

No. For two reasons.

1/ There are plenty of people in the world who can drop classic1, including sheilas, so getting dropped by one of the Meyers is nothing to be ashamed of.
2/ Jono knows what I look like, is taller than me and will no doubt fill out a bit in a year or two, so I'll STFU.

thunder

how far were you racing in Italy on stages last year Jono? Or in 06. You were still a jnr right, well, UCI u19 jnr?

thunder

dont think he rides a kilo that well

classic1

Yeah, Meyer the softcock can probably only ride a 1.04 with no specific preperation. I think he should retire, the bum.

Crankyfeet

So going back to the question I edited into a previous post. Is the 120km max race distance (in one stage), for juniors, just an Australian restriction?

Reference: The sixth paragraph in this article.

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thunder

pink slip him?

Jono L

They just changed the rules on that. It used to be 140ish k. IE- Tour of Bright 2006 I raced A grade as a junior and the first stage was 139k and that was cool but in 2007 the juniors weren't allowed to race A, they had to race B who's first stage was 110k (I however was at Byron Bay )

all the races we did in ITaly never went longer than 110k and cos they were so fast compared to aus races they were always over in under 3 hours so it felt really short..