Despite not completing the Elite Men Road Race, his team however managed to place second with Chris Harper (SA) coming in with a time of 4h45:48, one minute behind first place.

The placing is an outstanding effort for Toovey’s team considering only 25 cyclists finished the race, leaving 110 behind the finish line including Ayden.

“My race personally was good but tactics made it hard to be a factor in the race but in the end we were all happy with the result,” Toovey said.

“It’s always a pretty demanding course.”

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Toovey also placed 39th in the Elite Men Criterium with a time of 1h23:13 in a race that saw 12 riders not complete.

Heading into the race, Ayden says he was feeling good but knew there would be some stiff competition.

“James McCarthy was a big outside favourite, there was also Caleb Buan,” he said.

The 23-year-old has been cycling full-time for seven years and doesn’t look as though he will be hanging up the helmet any time soon.

“A fair few k’s have been done in those seven years,” he laughed.

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Toovey struggled to name a place he hadn’t raced at on the international stage, and says there’s a lot of benefits to all of the traveling.

“You get to see some pretty amazing places and meet some great people,” Ayden said.

Having cycled “pretty much everywhere”, Ayden says the quality of Australian races is on an incline.

Next up for the Mudgee cycling prodigy is Tour Down Under where he will ride with the national team on January 15, at South Australia.

“It should be a pretty good atomposhere I hope,” Toovey laughed.

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