The third stage of the Tour of Britain was a flat day around the East Riding of Yorkshire. The day started in Goole at the mouth of the Humber Estuary before heading up the coast and arching back inland to the finish at the horse racecourse in Beverley.

Saint Piran riders didn't get into the early break, which was made up of three riders. The escapees didn't get much gap and when the race got into more exposed roads our riders attacked hard with three riders getting away. Splitting the bunch in the panic, catching several big names off guard.

Unfortunately, that move was dragged back after making it up to the break. But, it launched multiple attacks from the WorldTour and ProConti teams, making the racing fast and chaotic.

Even with all this chaos, the bunch came together in the final few KMs with Jumbo-Visma executing yet another perfect leadout for their fast man, Olav Kooij. And the young Dutchman delivered with his third stage win in a row.

Harry Birchill was our best finisher on the day in 21st place with Finn Crockett taking 26th. All our guys finished in the bunch, safe and sound.

After the stage, our sports director Steve Lampier, summarised the day: “Stage three from Goole to the historic market town of Beverley. 145km of predominantly flat roads. We had a bit of a lumpy middle bit. Breakaway got away early. We made a tactical team decision to not join the breakaway as there was no reason for us to be there. We had a very ambitious, daring, ballsy plan to do a team attack on the coastal road from Bridlington down to the 25km to go mark, which was a crosswind section. We wanted to basically throw the cat amongst the pigeons and a red hot crack and take the race by the scruff of the neck. Something that teams at the Continental level just don’t do when fighting against WorldTour teams.

“So, to actually put that plan in place and see the boys actually do that with Alex Richardson, Harry Birchill and Jack Rootkin-Gray going away, albeit for a brief period of time, was amazing to see. It shows and solidifies what I have been saying for a long time. We are here to race. From that moment on to 10km to go it really ignited the race with various groups wanting to be active and aggressive with the WorldTour teams actually racing their bikes. We certainly put the Saint Piran team to the forefront of people’s minds in terms of hard racing at this level. Ultimately, it came down to a bunch finish with Harry being our best finisher. All-in-all, a really good day. Not the result we wanted, but, we wanted to show that we could race at this level with outside of the box thinking.”

Explosive day on the windy roads of East Yorkshire at the Tour of Britain 2023