The Canberra duo were on another level compared the rest of the field and stayed within arms reach of each other for the entire journey until Nipperess made his move on Rocket Street.

Nipperess stretched his lead out to almost 100 metres by the time he hit the finish line, winning a time of 23 minutes and nine seconds while Spiessberger-Parker was 21 seconds behind.

The pair were simply in another class compared to the rest of the field.

Orange runner Jack Bilton was the best of the rest in a time of 26:01, narrowly seeing off first woman home Lauren Reid (26:16).

Nipperess and Spiessberger-Parker, who race under the tutelage of renowned coach Dick Telford, succeeded in their task of pushing each other to the limit.

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"Aaron's very fit at the moment so it's great to have a good challenge with him. We were neck-and-neck until about 5km," Nipperess said.

"We each made a couple of moves, but nothing decisive, but with about 2km to go I had a dig and that's what we came for - a hard hit-out. I'm sure the coach will be happy with how we pushed ourselves.

"I was running scared though. I looked deep into Aaron's eyes and I could see the fire. It was a great challenge and you can never be too confident when you're running against class athletes and Aaron is one of those."

Spiessberger-Parker never lost sight of Nipperess but knew he needed something spectacular to reel his training partner back.

"He was just too good on those downhills around the 2km mark. He ended up getting a big gap," he said.

"I just wanted to hang on for as long as I could and see how I'd go. James is running well and the moment and I know how fit he is from training."

Nipperess and Spiessberger-Parker were taking on the course for the first time in Sunday's 2019 edition.

The hills on Esrom, Rocket and Russell Street provided plenty of punishment for their legs.

Steeplechase specialist Nipperess might not have had any physical hurdles in front of him for this race but the Esrom Street ascent in particular gave him a worthy challenge.

"It was tough. No-one's soft here in Bathurst. They breed them tough out here," Nipperess said.

"Eight minutes in that hill arrived and I looked down at my watch and I thought 'It's already starting to hurt'."

"There's not many road races around where you find these types of hills," Spiessberger-Parker added.