Tour Of Britain 2015

Monday after the TOB 2015 and reflecting on some of the highlights of the week both for myself and the team as a whole. 

We began the week with the sole objective of getting someone in the break on the first stage. This is always an important job as it set's the tone for the rest of the race both in the team amongst the riders but also amongst the rest of the field. It is important for smaller team's to show you mean business and are not just satisfied with riding round in the peleton. We did this well with Pete Williams getting up the road in a small group and contesting sprint points and mountain points in the day.

Day two was special as the race was de neutralised up a hard climb and the filed was split in half after just 3 miles. When it came back together the break was already gone and it was a two up group again with Pete Williams. This was a significant achievement given the speed of the start and the fact he had been up the road in the break the day before. Again he built up a good tally of points in the sprint and mountains competition taking the lead in the points and wearing the jersey. This was now an objective for the team to keep hold of it and defend his lead which we did for the next few days marking out his closest rivals so they could not escape and win points on the road.

Day three saw Marcin Bialoblocki again go up the road in the break of the day. The rest of us stayed out of trouble as Pete tried to regain as much strength as possible after his long days up the road in the wind.

As we got to stage 4 and then 5 it was clear we could genuinely look to win the sprints competition but it was clear it was likely to need one more day for Pete in the break to put it out of reach of anyone else. This he did on stage 5. A hard day that finished up the only mountain top finish on the race Hartside Fell. It was likely the break would be caught at the bottom but that they would pick up the mountains and sprint points of the day first ahead of the bunch which they did. Pete taking maximum sprint points giving him a significant lead in that competition but he also rolled 2nd and 3rd on the climbs which found him taking over the lead in that competition as well. While this was not a clear objective as it turned out we decided to try and defend this jersey as well as the last day with any climbs was Saturdays stage 7 to Ipswich. This stage saw a battle and some drama between ONE Pro Cycling and Madison Genesis as Tom Stuart the previous leader in the mountains competition fought hard to take back the mountains jersey. It ended up all coming down to the last categorised climb of the race with Pete and Tom equal on points. Madison had been riding to set Tom up and it was down to us to provide a good enough launch pad for Pete to beat Tom on the final climb. It was hard and the pace was fast but the guys pulled hard and with 200m to go to the top of the climb pulled clear of the bunch in the sprint for the line which Pete won while George Harper, Chris Opie and Marcin Bialoblocki also scored points to stop Stuart placing highly and in so clinching the jersey for the week.

This brings us to Sunday stage 8 round London. Pete had a 7 point lead in the sprint competition with only 1 rider capable of beating him but he would need to score at least 8 of the 9 points available on the day. So if Connor Dunn didn't score well on the first sprint of the day then the jersey was safe, thankfully he didn't and it was confirmed Pete had won the Sprint competition and the mountains competition in the same year. A significant achievement by a truly talented rider who thoroughly deserves all the success and support of his team.

I would just like to thank everyone on the race both riders and staff. We all worked so hard for these results, they did not come easy and we were pushed to our limits to clinch the titles for the two competitions. The sense of pride and satisfaction amongst the team and staff was clear and genuine and for that I personally am truly grateful. Lastly I want to thank all the people who showed their support to the team along the rout over the week. It was so special to hear our names shouted constantly through the towns and villages of the race. 2015 has been an amazing experience with the OPC family atmosphere and I am really looking forward to doing it again next year hopefully at Pro Conti level.

Thanks again and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at different events over the winter. As always sign up to the news letter and keep an eye out for special offers and new products available from Le Col.

Thanks very much,

Yanto