Stage Four of The Tour of Britain - Redcar to Helmsley

A sunny day for the boys leaving the waterproofs firmly in the team cars meant for a sunny trip over the Yorkshire dales. We initially had Harry Birchell in the breakaway of two which lasted for 20km, caught by the world tour teams leading the peloton. Bridging the gap to the group of 30 at the front meant Jack Rootkin Gray placed himself in an excellent position for the group sprint where he finished 4th and 9th overall today. A notable performance by Cooper Sayers, who stuck with the leading peloton for most of the day.

Chatting to our Sports Director Steve Lampier we got his low down on today’s stage; “We had a plan and wanted to put a rider in the first breakaway but we knew the first 50k it would be super aggressive because the world tour teams weren’t happy that with SunGod had the leaders jersey so they needed to get somebody in that front group to then in the second phase have someone to swing board to which is exactly what happened and then finally a break went away with an Ineos Grenadiers rider and Harry Birchell and they stayed away from 20kms before getting caught. Two groups of 15 then came together at the front – Harry was there and Jack Rootkin-Gray rode across to it and Cooper Sayers was there having a super day. And behind the other boys just rode in easy saving their legs for a different days. The middle part of the race was super hard, I’ve rode them previously at the Tour of Yorkshire so I knew how hard they were – so that no team can chase so the gap just extended. Coming into the finale of the race, unfortunly Harry and Cooper were dropped on the climb – but still a very respectable race from those two but Jack did a sterling ride and stayed in the front group. Despite four getting away towards the end on the last hot spot sprint Jack finished 4th in the bunch sprint for 9th place. So happy really really happy!”

With Stage 4 complete we are halfway through the tour! Two combativity awards, a 3rd place and plenty of points picked up – we’re excited for the second half of the tour to see how we can better ourselves as a team.

Tomorrow, we had to Stage 5, West Bridgford to Mansfield.

Pictures: Global Vision 3D