Southland-raised rider Jeremy Presbury has won stage two of this year's SBS Bank Tour of Southland, the 70th edition of the race, taking a 4-man breakaway all the way from Invercargill to Gore on Monday and winning the sprint with a lunge at the line.

The 159km stage, the first open-road day of the race, was ridden in testing wind. A group of four got clear and, as race leader Cameron Jones put it afterwards, the peloton behind had little say in the matter. The break was never brought back.

Presbury, who rides for Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project, beat Australian Reuben Page-Brown (Team Brennan) into second place. Presbury's teammate George Jackson was third, 12 seconds back on the official results, with the stage covered in 3hr 21min.

Jones (Advanced Personnel), from Nelson, was the fourth man in the group and keeps the orange jersey he has held since Sunday's street race. His margin over Presbury is now just 5 seconds, with Page-Brown third at 16 seconds and Jackson fourth at 25. Stage 1 winner Max Campbell (Macaulay Ford-GoodTech) sits fifth at 36 seconds. Sixteen riders are within a minute of the lead.

Jones told the race's media team he had been riding for time rather than contesting the primes along the way, and warned that nobody can relax in this race.

For Presbury the win carries extra weight. He was one of New Zealand's leading track sprinting prospects more than a decade ago before walking away from elite sport for a career in project management and construction. He now lives in Wānaka, where he took up gravel racing after repeatedly breaking his collarbone on a mountain bike, reconnected with his former junior track coach Ross Machejefski, and found the long, hard efforts suited him.

Encouraged by Southland professional Tom Sexton, he lined up at the elite men's road nationals last summer and finished fourth, and in 2026 he has been racing offshore with the NZ Cycling Project squad run by James Canny. Monday's result was his first road stage win in a race he said he had always wanted to ride, and he called it "really special".

The stage reshuffled the minor classifications. Presbury took over the King of the Mountain jersey with 20 points to Jackson's 8, and the race's own report also credited him with the Sprint Ace lead, although the official points table published on Monday night had Jackson a point ahead, 19 to 18. Page-Brown was named most combative rider and leads the under-23 category. Ben Dyball (Macaulay Ford-GoodTech) moved into the over-35 lead, and Creation Signs-Whoosh-NZ Cycling Project took the teams classification from Advanced Personnel, leading Team Brennan by 24 seconds.

Stage 3 on Tuesday is 158km from Riverton to Te Anau, sponsored by Distinction Hotels. Riders rolled out of Riverton at 10am, head along the exposed southern coast and tackle the Blackmount climb before an expected finish on Lakefront Drive in Te Anau at about 1.30pm. Jones expects the wind to ease as the week goes on, but with the gaps this tight, the race is wide open.

The tour continues through to Saturday 7 November with stages in the Remarkables, to Lumsden and Bluff, a time trial near Winton and the traditional Invercargill finale.