Olympic pursuit champion Sarah Ulmer produced a stunning solo ride to demolish a class international field in the second round of the women's World Cup road cycling series Sunday.

Ulmer, who switched to road racing less than a year ago, proved peerless against a field containing riders with numerous Olympic and world titles.

Among those left in her wake were the world's top three road riders in 2005 - Australia's Oenone Wood, Sweden's Susanne Ljungskog and Germany's Judith Arndt. Ulmer clocked three hours 16 minutes 45 seconds for the 124-kilometer race on an inner-city circuit, bettering last year's winning time by Dutchwoman Suzanne de Goede on the same course by more than 21 minutes. Wood, the world No 1, was a distant runner-up, 4min 24sec behind, and German Ina Teutenberg, who won last week's opening round of the series in Geelong, Australia, was third, another two seconds back. Ulmer turned on the power on the sixth of 20 laps, clocking a searing lap time of 9min 56sec to clear away by almost 2min on the floundering peloton.

She played down her individual performance, preferring to give credit to her team who "did a wicked job in the bunch to make sure no one else caught me." But the outstanding nature of Ulmer's ride was not lost on her rivals.

By the time she had extended her lead to 5min by the 15th lap "it was sort of all over," said Wood, who will renew her rivalry with Ulmer in this month's Commonwealth Games road race and time trial in Melbourne. "Sarah certainly showed her colors today. It was a fantastic ride and, you know, look out for the Commonwealth Games." Wood said the thinking in the peloton was that one person on her own could not possibly stay out for such an extended period of time. "I guess we were wrong there," she noted.