The orange jersey went north to Cambridge, but Southland did not leave its own tour empty-handed. Invercargill's Jeremy Presbury finished Saturday as King of the Mountains and sixth overall, the highest-placed local in the 70th Tour of Southland.

Presbury, riding for Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project, ended the week 3min 10sec behind winner Matthew Wilson on the official results. He collected 56 points in the climbers' competition, 11 more than PowerNet's Ollie Jones, and had the title wrapped up on Friday with a day still to race.

It capped a week in which he was rarely out of the picture. He won Monday's 159km run from Invercargill to Gore out of a four-rider breakaway, pulled on the leader's orange jersey after Tuesday's third stage, which ran from Riverton to Te Anau, one second ahead of Cameron Jones, and was still sixth after Friday's climb of Bluff Hill.

Saturday morning's 14km time trial at Winton cost him ground. He was 16th, 50 seconds slower than Wilson, and slipped to 3min 19sec off the lead. He got nine of those seconds back in the afternoon by making the front group of ten that contested the sprint on Gala Street, where he was ninth and given the same time as the stage winner, his teammate George Jackson.

The result is a long way from where Presbury was a few years ago. He was once among the country's brightest track sprinting prospects before giving up elite sport for a career in construction and project management, the Southland Tribune reported earlier in the week. Now living in Wānaka, he came back to competition through gravel racing. After his Gore win he told the Tribune it was his "first proper road stage", and that it had come in an event he had grown up around and always wanted to ride.

His team had plenty else to celebrate. Jackson's victory in the final stage was his first in six attempts at the tour and delivered him the Sprint Ace jersey, 51 points to 48 over Australian Max Campbell. Jack Drage was named most combative rider on the last stage and finished third in both the sprint and climbing standings. The squad, run by James Canny, was third in the teams classification, 4min 5sec behind winners Team Brennan.

Another Invercargill rider in the same colours, Marshall Erwood, produced one of the rides of the final day. He was third in the Winton time trial, only three seconds slower than Wilson and two behind Julian Baudry of Team Brennan, and finished the tour 16th overall at 5min 37sec.

Southland's Tom Sexton, a scratch race silver medallist at this year's track world championships, was seventh in the time trial at 32 seconds and 30th overall for SBS Wealth. Nick Kergozou, the 2025 Sprint Ace, reached the Gala Street finish in the main bunch with his Open Country TES team.

The team carrying the name of Southland lines company PowerNet also had a hand in the finale. Kiaan Watts was second to Jackson in the last sprint, and Christchurch's Ben Airey had won Thursday's 178km stage to Lumsden in the team's colours.

There was a Southland hand on the steering wheel as well. Josh Burnett, the Southland professional who won January's rescheduled edition for his third title, could not defend it because of his professional contract and spent the week in a support vehicle with Presbury's squad instead.

Full stage and classification results are on the tour's website, tourofsouthland.com.