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The Tour of Britain 2007
On September 12th 2007 the Tour of Britain came to Worcestershire
and took in some of the same route as the Jack Clements Memorial
Little Mountain Time Trial, including the famous ascent of
Ankerdine. Stage 3 of the UCI 2.1 classified stage race started
in Worcester and finished in Wolverhampton, taking in Malvern,
Stourport and Bridgenorth on the way.
Young British star Mark Cavendish (T-Mobile) had won both
the prologue at Crystal Palace and Stage 1, but the yellow
jersey had passed to Russian rider Nikolay Trusov of the Tinkoff
team by the time the Tour rolled out of Worcester on Stage
3. Large crowds had gathered on Ankerdine and eagerly awaited
news of how the stage was unfolding. The publicity cars ahead
of the race soon told us that a small break of eight had jumped
clear not long after the start of the stage and that break
was to stick for the rest of the day. So the enthusiastic
spectators on Ankerdine cheered on the 8-man break consisting
of Matt Goss (CSC), Ben Swift (Barloworld), Freddy Bichot
(Agritubel), Martin Maaskant (Rabobank), Roger Hammond (T-Mobile),
Zak Dempster (South Australia.com), Paul Manning (Great Britain)
and Rob Partridge (Recycling.co.uk). Five or so minutes later
the main peleton arrived and made light work of the nasty
ascent.
Matt Goss rode very strongly all day and achieved a comfortable
stage win in Wolverhampton, followed in by Bichot in second
and Hammond in third. British rising star Ben Swift, meanwhile
had claimed the King of the Mountains jersey by the end of
the day, a jersey which he held until the end of the race.
Now, all riders in the Little Mountain TT are timed up the
climb of Ankerdine so we thought this opportunity too good
to miss. A chance to time the professionals and make a comparison!
The lead group of the Tour of Britain were therefore timed
in exactly the same way as Little Mountain riders and the
results are below. Observers commented that the pros seemed
to be taking it easy up Ankerdine, but looking at their time,
can we really be so sure that they weren't trying very hard
to make it look easy?!
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Who
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Event
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Note
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Year
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Time
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Lead group
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Tour of Britain
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Breakaway of riders
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2007
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3mins 11sec
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Daniel Soltys
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Little Mountain TT
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LMTT Combined Hill-Climbs record-holder
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2007
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3mins 24sec
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Stuart Dangerfield
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Little Mountain TT
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Fastest recorded in LMTT
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2000
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3mins 12sec
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