Kris Hedges brought a sample of his World Championship form back to Bermuda and outclassed the field to retain his national road race title yesterday.

Hedges, who rides semi-pro with US team Snow Valley, left others in the lead pack for dead two thirds of the way through the 75-mile race at Southside, St. David's, and never looked back.

The 21-year-old took it easy for the last quarter of the 17-lap contest, yet still managed to finish nearly 10 minutes and around three miles ahead of second-placed Steve Millington with a winning time of three hours, 19 minutes, 53 seconds.

Hedges, who flies back to the US today to compete in his first six-day stage race, the Tour de Toona in Pennsylvania, was riding on home soil for the first time since a brilliant ride earned him fourth place in the road race at the World B Cycling Championships in China last month.

Ironically, Hedges would not have been available to compete if yesterday's race had taken place on its scheduled date, two weeks before, when heavy rain forced a postponement.

National cycling coach Greg Hopkins paid the price for making an early break and withdrew a lap and a half from the finish suffering from cramp in both legs, when he was holding a comfortable third place.

Damion Wilson was the beneficiary and held on to take third in 3:35:43, just ahead of first female Julia Hawley, who was given the same time.

Kevin Topple won the category three race in 3:36:46 and finished fifth overall, while Melanie Claude, who lost valuable time when she suffered a flat tyre with just three laps to go, finished strongly to place sixth in 3:38:49.

Fourteen-year-old Adam Petty performed outstandingly to win the boys' 15-16 age group, completing his eight-lap race in 1:30:09, ahead of the unfortunate Matthew Herring who had two flat tyres. Petty hung in the draft of the lead pack of Karl Outerbridge, who eventually withdrew, Hedges, Millington and Hopkins, and left them behind to be the first rider overall to cross the line after eight 4.25-mile laps.

"It was pretty much a race of attrition," said Hedges. "These guys have not done the distance I've done away, so I had the advantage out here.

"I knew I had to watch Steve and Greg, with them being Winner's Edge team-mates. Steve and I were pulling Greg for about a lap and then he dropped off.

"With about six laps to go, I just upped the tempo a little bit and Steve didn't come through. At first, I thought he was just blocking for Greg, so that if I dropped off, Greg could come back.

"When I saw Steve wasn't coming through I turned and spoke to him and he said he was toast, so I kept up the tempo and he just dropped off."

When Hedges caught the chasing pack, he hung with them, breaking away to lap them only in sight of the finish line, a tactic used to conserve energy for this week's big race in the US.

Hedges said he would be looking to do little more than just survive his first six-day stage race in the pro one category.

In two weeks' time Hedges will be back on the Island to take charge of the Argus Insurance Junior Cycling Clinic, at Southside, from August 13-18. Helping him will be his Snow Valley team-mate, Glenn Randall, a Canadian national team rider.

Hopkins said: "Kris was the hot favourite, so the plan was I would try to initiate a break from the start and I pretty much went from the gun.

"The idea of that was I could build a lead and then Steve would make Kris do all the work to pull it back, but he's too smart for that. We had to do something, either sit with him as long as we could, or make him work for it.

"I paid for making the early pace and in the end I was happy to hang in with these guys as long as I did. I was getting such serious cramps in my legs I couldn't turn the pedals over."

And the coach was well pleased to see Hedges competing at home.

"It's great for Bermuda that Kris came back to race," said Hopkins. "He's had a terrific year and his performance in China was unbelievable.

"We just hope to keep building on it, with Kris as our team leader for the national team and look for some more strong performances overseas next year."

Millington said Hedges' class had told over the distance.

"I hung with him as long as I could and with six or seven laps to go, he just went," said the Englishman.

"We're not really used to racing this kind of distance here. Kris does it week in, week out and it really showed today."

Jim Butterfield won the veterans division, Sharon Fenn won the female category and Alex Jones was the top novice.