Eli Tregidga, 20, last year ended his first full season with Dutch team JEGG-SKIL-DJR with a concussion following "quite a bad crash".
"I hadn’t really raced anything until it was going to be Southland, so I actually was pretty happy when it got postponed.
"Now I’m in some really good form, and we’ve had this good 12-week block to kind of get back on track."
Tregidga’s first Tour of Southland was in 2024 just after a six-month layoff due to a knee injury which curtailed his plan to race for his Dutch team that year.
"I was just coming back but the whole experience, competing with the elite riders in New Zealand, was really cool."
His best finish was 11th on the first stage, "but most of it was really just the experience and learning to ride [that far]".
"I’d never ridden anything that distance — seven days, that’s a long time — and you don’t really know how your body’s going to react and everything."
Next week he’s in the six-man Advanced Personnel team whose star is Kiwi Matt Wilson, who finished second in the 2024 tour.
"We’re going to be just trying to do everything we can for him."
So don’t expect him to win next Wednesday’s stage which finishes up The Remarkables skifield road — unlike Queenstown cyclist Reuben Thompson, who sensationally took that stage in 2020.
"But I’m really good on the flat, windy days where it’s just about all raw power."
And due to his size he can give team-mates, he says, "an amazing draft".
This year he’s returning to his Dutch team where he’s officially an under-23 rider, "but most of the races I did last year were open elite".
His best result was a fourth — "it was just something where it all came together, and if you can get fourth, it’s not a huge step to first".
Tregidga stresses he’s still gaining experience in Europe.
"It’s like such a foreign thing — anybody that comes over from NZ, no matter how good they are, they’ll have a big shock."
His aim’s still to turn pro and ride for NZ again.
In 2023, after winning the U19 title in NZ’s elite road cycling champs, he made the NZ junior team for the worlds in Scotland, though he had a mechanical issue that effectively took him out of the race.
"My next opportunity would be likely towards the end of U23 because that’s when I’d be at my peak for the age group."
