Wet, Wild & Winless

Yet another edition of the Tour of Britain passed without a win for Britain’s domestic Continental teams — can they ever make a breakthrough?

- Chris Marshall-Bell

There were three things you could predict with confidence ahead of this year’s Tour of Britain: that a sprinter would win all of the road stages; that each day’s breakaway would contain a rider from a British Continental outfit; and that no rider from one of those four UK Continental teams — the third division of professional cycling — would win a stage.

That last may sound unduly harsh but no rider from a British Continental team has won a stage since the modern race’s inception in 2004. That’s 107 stages without a victory.

Jonathan Tiernan-Locke, riding for British Continental team Endura Racing, won the race overall in 2012, but failed to win a stage; regardless, his win was retrospectively wiped off the record books after he was later banned for anomalies in his biological passport.

This year, the teams attempting to reverse that 14-year barren run were JLT-Condor, Madison- Genesis, Bike Channel-Canyon and One Pro Cycling.

Their odds of winning a stage were lengthy, some longer than others. John Herety, team manager of JLT-Condor, offers up his honest, candid opinion as to why their chances were slim.

“We have a slightly skewed perception of how good we are in the UK. We are nowhere near as good as the other teams, or as good as we think we are,” he says.

Herety isn’t being defeatist, he is just merely pointing out the facts. The Tour of Britain for British riders in cycling’s third division is, to use a football analogy, the FA Cup final. It’s what their season is geared up towards; it’s what prompts their non-cycling friends to stand at the roadside to catch a glimpse of their mate.