City workers and cycling fans alike were treated to a fast and furious first round of the 2010 Halfords Tour Series at Canary Wharf last night, with Londoner Tony Gibb of CyclePremier.com-Metaltek snatching victory by a tyre’s width from the evergreen Malcolm Elliott of Motorpoint-Marshall’s Pasta.
This being the Tour Series, though, the classification that really counts is the team one, and again the spoils here went to the locals, with home team Rapha Condor Sharp putting paid to any suspicions they might be suffering from jet-lag after returning from the Tour of Japan at the weekend, with Dean Downing the best placed of their riders, coming in third behind Gibb and Elliottt, with team-mates Dean Windsor and Graham Briggs coming in fifth and sixth, respectively.
The pace was high from the very start, and any escapes that did form were quickly pulled back on the 1km circuit, shaped like an elongated rectangle with tied turns at either end and the landmark Canada Tower, still Britain’s tallest building, in the centre.
Kuota-road.cc, of course, were there in the mix too, always in the thick of the action, and did enough to take eighth place in the team classification, and we’ll bring you the team’s views on the race as soon as we can.
One new feature of the Tour Series this year is the Boardman Bikes Sprints Competition, and t was a rider from a team sponsored by another bike company, Raleigh’s Liam Holohan, who becomes the first wearer of that jersey.
Before the Tour Series race, British Road Race Champion Kristian House of Rapha Condor Sharp, who won a stage of the Tour of Japan last week, claimed another victory when he took the sprint after riding the anchor lap for Barclays Capital in the six-lap pro-am Canary Wharf Corporate Challenge race.
You can catch all the action from Canary Wharf tonight on ITV4 at 7pm, and the next race is in Durham on Thursday, with more information available at www.tourseries.co.uk.
Round One Results
Team
1) Rapha Condor Sharp
2) Endura Racing
3) Motorpoint-Marshalls Pasta
4) Team Raleigh
5) Pendragon-Le Col-Colnago
6) Sigma Sport-Specialized
7) CyclePremier.com-Metaltek
8) Kuota-road.cc
9) Team Corley Cycles
10) Team Ireland
Individual
1) Tony Gibb (CyclePremier.com-Metaltek)
2) Malcolm Elliott (Motorpoint-Marshalls Pasta)
3) Dean Downing (Rapha Condor Sharp)
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7 comments
Aero-rims. Watched the coverage, and am left wondering why didn't all the teams select deeper aero-rims. Surely with the flat circuit and consistently high-speeds this was the only choice. Rapha went for them. Most others didn't. Why? What's the science?
Watched the coverage, lots of recap on last year, lots of introduction, a bit of cycling AND they got the team name wrong.
I remember names such as Rapha Condor Sharp, CantiTV Marshalls Pasta (last year) etc etc being spoken about, using the full names whenever mentioned but for us, no, it was just team kuota, not kuota road.cc.
Sort it out ITV
So no Ned no Anthony McCrossan instead we get the super earnest and very awful Jill Douglas. Thought the first episode was lack lustre and did not feature enough men racing bikes.
Durham circuit should be interesting on Friday.
Agree with the above posts could you have a blank paragraph or something so that if you forget and click onto the news page you dont find out the winner.
Agree with post above. Waited to watch it on tv before coming on here from previous experience. But sometimes I forget.
Any chance you could prefix reports on the Tour Series with "Spoiler", or not mention the winning rider/team in the title, so people waiting for the coverage on ITVwhatever at 7pm the next day can scan your RSS feed without giving the game away?
I reckon the stilettos are a bit of colour branding for Halfords… that doesn't quite match their corporate colour. Platform stilettos must be on-trend this summer Kelly Brook was wearing a pair in the pics for the Sky Ride launch, although she swapped 'em when she was riding that tredle bike
Hmm… maybe I've been using the zoom function just a bit too much http://road.cc/content/news/17868-sky-rides-announced-10-british-cities-...
Why do our podium girls always look like Page 3 glamour girls, whereas on the continent they always look stylish? Bright orange platform stilettos!