For a team to defend a race lead over seven stages takes a tremendous amount of effort on everyone's part to ensure the win. For one rider to do it on his own start to finish is almost unimaginable.

But John Murphy of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis pulled it off during the five-day, seven-stage Tour of Atlanta this past weekend, despite having to contend with full squads form a number of teams, including UCI continental team Toshiba.

Murphy won the opening-stage time trial by a solid 0:31 margin, but had five members of Toshiba within 0:55 of him after the stage.

But after the second stage - an unusual street sprint stage done over three rounds of sprints only, with time bonuses awarded for the top three finishers in each sprint - Murphy pushed his lead out to a slightly more comfortable 0:54 after winning all three rounds of his sprints.

From there it was a matter of being vigilant and riding defensively. He finished second in the stage 3 circuit race, and second again with a composite team in the stage 4 team time trial. But his lead had shrunk to 0:20 after the TTT. That lead held through stage 5, and despite a time bonus for another second place in the stage 6 criterium, his lead dropped to 0:16. But that's where it stayed after the final stage criterium.

"The last couple criteriums were hard," Murphy said. "Toshiba was attacking constantly. But I knew after Stage 2 that I just had to stay close and follow (Frank) Trevieso (Toshiba) and I'd be fine.

"I'm pretty tired," he continued. "But I think the work I did this weekend will pay off next weekend at the CSC Invitational and during Philly Week. I have a couple days to recover from this race so I should be good."