Team Wildside

Paul writes; Today’s stage was really about young guns and wise heads. The young guns were Daf Dylan (KFS Sunday Cycles) and Tom Murray (Kinesis RT) who attacked almost from the word go.

Admittedly points leader Murray was out to consolidate his lead, but the wise heads stayed in the main field knowing that anything less than at least a three minute gap would be wiped out by the “Sting-in-the-Tail” climb up to the finish atop Leith Hill. With a maximum lead of around one minute forty midway through the days stage the leading duo were never allowed to open the required gap.
As the laps passed and they got ever closer to the final climb so the gap reduced. At the bell the lead was down to less than thirty seconds and they were reeled in before the start of the climb. Once on the climb King-of-the Mountains Matthew Higgins (Team Corley Cycles) made his move, crossing the line six seconds ahead of nearest chaser John Veness (Kona UK) consolidating his lead in the KOM competition.

Mark & Simon on the front.

Overall race leader Chris McNamara crossed the line thirty three seconds later making sure that his nearest challengers were both behind him. Second overall Andrew Bye crossed the line right behind Chris recording the same time but Gary Dodd lost a further twelve seconds. Although this is Higgins' second stage win, the time that he lost on Stage 1 means he is still over four minutes down on McNamara overalland although not totally out of contention, the six riders within two minutes of the overall lead should be his main challengers but with a really tough day's stage tomorrow and the dreaded “Wall” to be climbed this race is far from over.!!
During the long pursuit of the two leaders it seemed that (when I saw them at least) the bunch was led either by Steve Calland (Surrey League) or Simon McNamara (Wildside RT