Paddy Bevin has won the men's time trial at the National Road Cycling Championships in Napier.
The Waikato product blitzed the field in a course record time of 50m 45s.
Dethroned champion Hamish Bond had a mechanical issue and was almost two minutes behind Bevin (52m 37s) - but still finished second.
Bevin, who beat Bond's winning record from 2018 by four seconds, is pleased to be able to wear the national champion's 'TT' jersey later this year with his new professional UCI World Team CCC.
"It's really big. Look, it's a really hard race to target fully being the first day of the year," Bevin said.
"I'd said I wanted to come here and take a jersey back... To carry the Silver Fern in Europe is going to be a huge honour and a source of pride, as we start lining up these time trials in the World Tour."
Georgia Williams won the women's time trial by almost twelve seconds from Rushlee Buchanan, backing up the first of her two New Zealand titles.
The Auckland pro is aiming to also defend her road race crown on Saturday.
The men's road race is on Sunday.
Newshub.
