The opening stage of this year’s Tour of the North did not disappoint, with the wind and the climbs taking their toll on the hardened souls brave enough to roll out this morning.
19 year old Marcus Burnett, of English heavyweights, Spirit Tifosi has taken stage 1 of the Dixon’s Contractors Tour of the North. He got the better of Pro Vision’s Jack Stanton on the line after the pair gave the rest of the 11 man break the slip 6 miles from home.
Powerhouse Sport’s in form man, Lindsay Watson completed the podium, crossing the line 18 seconds after Burnett. He edged out Darnell Moore (Caldwell), Cian Delany (Stamullen) and Charlie Passfield (Spirit Tifosi). The remainder of the break flew in at 57 seconds down with young gun Breandan Flanagan (Powerhouse) taking the shunt ahead of Rupert Graham (Spirit Tifosi), Archie Ryan (Cycling Ireland) and Craig McCauley (Caldwell) who completed the top 10.
The leading eleven were part of a late breakaway which pulled clear on the final KOH, the CAT1 Trostan mountain. Frequent attacks followed the KOH, fuelled by a massive tail wind, with speeds touching over 45mph in places.
The race headed off to the coast into a stiff headwind which made for hard racing with nowhere to hide. A few escape attempts were made but nothing was doing. That was until the infamous rise up Ballyvaddy. The front of the bunch turned its nose up the first ramp of the climb and the pace rocketed. Halfway up and the field had cracked and split into three groups. A large group went clear on the descent but it was quickly shut down with a number of teams unwilling to give an inch.
Next up was Glenariffe and this was a similar situation to Ballyvaddy. A fast pace split the race up once again but one man, Spirit Tifosi’s Rupert Graham lit the blue touch paper and set off on the hairy descent to Cushendall. Although he did not get a huge gap, the 30 or seconds he stole on the nearest challengers going onto Trostan, forced them to chase hard, forming the break which would hold onto the line.
On the draggy stretch to Ballymena, Stanton hit out hard, blowing everyone off his wheel but one man was having none of it. Burnett dug deep to get across and the two came together and pulled the whole way to the line where Burnett got his hands up for a big win.
At the end if the day, Burnett holds the yellow leader’s Jersey as well as the white Jersey for best u23 with Charlie Passfield in the polka dot Jersey.
After 65 miles of brutal rasing, only 57 seconds separates the top 10 and under 3 minutes covers the top 20 so this really is anyone’s race.
Tomorrow morning‘s 4.8 mile TT is sure to shake things up. No fancy kit here so it’s truly man vs man. Expect to see a shake up of gc before the 65 mile grinder around the fearsome Roguery.
Will Spirit Tifosi be able to defend yellow after two more tough stages tomorrow? We’ll find out tomorrow afternoon!
Results below
