Day two at the Tour of Britain was another day in the blazing September sunshine with temperatures hitting above 29 degrees celsius on what was a rapid day in the saddle for the riders.

Finn Crockett was our rider in the break of the day with three other riders. Jake Scott of Bolton Equities-Blackspoke, Callum Ormiston of Global6 and Abram Stockman of TDT-Unibet. But, after yesterday’s close shave, the peloton wouldn’t even give the break anything over a minute.

Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers had a stranglehold on the race from the flag drop. Fortunately, Finn did stay out with his breakaway friends and the Scot took maximum points on the day’s KoM (four points) as well as points in the intermediate sprint taking second. It was quite clear that the break was going to be caught. Despite that, Finn carried on his effort with Stockman. They were finally caught just inside 10km to go with the peloton getting ready for the sprint.

The team behind were working hard to make sure Will Tidball was in a good position as they surfed the wheels and managed to avoid a nasty looking crash by DSM-Firmenich rider Tobias Andresen. Tidball stayed in the baking sun and managed to finish a strong 12th on the day with breakaway star, Finn, managing a very impressive 19th after a full day in the breakaway.

Sports director, Steve Lampier, shared his thoughts after the stage: “It was the shortest day of the race. We knew it was going to be fast, aggressive race. After a few kilometres, Finn got away, which was ideal for us. However, Jumbo-Visma didn’t allow the gap to go out to much more than a minute. Finn put a last dig in on the KoM and stayed with one other from the break but was caught shortly after. The secondary plan was to get Will into the best possible position for the sprint. It is really hard when racing against WorldTour teams to do so. However, the lads put Will into a great place and we crossed the line in 12th place, which is very positive. That shows we can improve day-by-day. Really happy with the stage. We’re here to race the race and I believe we’re still doing that after two stages.”

Harry Birchill gave his take on the day in the peloton and his job supporting Will in the sprint: “Today was quite a chilled day in the main group. It was really warm, which was nice. Just chatted to a lot of people and then towards the end got stuck in to try and help Will out. I had a bit of a close call coming into the finish which put me back but, all-in-all a good day. Looking forward to the next few days.”

Photo: SW.Pix.com

More breakaway antics in high paced second stage of the Tour of Britain 2023