Ilkley Cycling Club hosted their first 2 day Stage Race this weekend. A field of 75 riders was permitted and allowed twenty five 3-man teams to compete from the Midlands, the North East, the North West and Yorkshire areas.
Fantastic event sponsorship from AvantiGas allowed Ilkley CC to have the three traditional leaders jerseys, these were awarded after each stage. Stage One on Saturday morning covered 4.5 laps of the long established Pennypot Lane circuit giving an opening stage of 52 miles.
With both Sprint and Hill points being awarded each lap racing was fast from the end of the neutralized. At the end of the stage around fifty riders sprinted for the win with Knottingley Velo’s Jon Wilkinson taking a fine victory on Bland Hill from Squadra RT’s Jacob Trotter and Ilkley’s Ben Hallworth. Hallworth had a good lead in the green points jersey following the stage result and the intermittent sprints. Steve Guymer guesting for Cottingham Coureurs led the polka-dot jersey.
Stage Two was run on Saturday afternoon and covered a 4.6 mile TTT back over Bland Hill and then onto the Norwood Edge Summit. Langsett Cycles RT posted the fastest time of 11:50 closely followed by Ilkley CC in 11:54 and then Manchester Wheelers in 12:05. Andy Nicols of the Langsett Cycles team took over the race lead but everything was to ride for on Sunday as there were 26 riders with in a minute of him.
Stage Three, the final stage on Sunday, was held on the tough Dacre/Darley circuit in Nidderdale with 5.5 laps being covered to give around 45 miles of hard racing. Early morning rain faded away to provide dry racing conditions.
The first half of the race saw both the Points (Hallworth) and Hills (Guymer) contenders working hard to defend their lead with very strong teams support. With ten miles to go Alex Jones (Audlem CC) and Craig Battersby (Team Chronomaster) escaped the bunch on one of the climbs and started to establish a decent lead, however within 1/2 lap Jones was out on his own with Battersby dropping back to the chasing bunch. At the bell Jones had established a 1:04 gap, he needed 1:09 to take the overall.
Guymer and Feather Cycles Kendal Noctor had also escaped the bunch and chased hard. Jones then demonstrated why he is one to watch in the future, pressing on he crossed the line in fine style and had increased the gap to 1:28 to tale the Overall Race by 19 seconds from Nicols
Alex rode all 3 stages on a pair of Spada Tivan 50mm
Well done Alex and Spada!!
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