Recycling.co.uk Start Cinturon Tour in Majorca
18.04.07: Staying in Palma Nova on the Holiday Island of Majorca the recycling.co.uk team are enjoying the hot racing and temperatures of this beautiful Balearic Island. The team are competing in the UCI 2.2 ranked Cinturon Tour stage race which has a very high standard of competition and huge number of athletes taking part.
Race team manager John Herety, said he "was very happy with the way the team adapted to the hot temperatures" and said "the boys rode an attacking race". Considering this is the biggest event the new and younger members have ever competed in they did extremely well.
The first stage today (18th) saw a very fast overall pace averaging in excess of 44 kilometres per hour for the race distance of 154 kms. The recycling.co.uk riders were involved in all of the attacking moves with Simon Holt being the first rider to join a significant break. He was soon joined by Tom Diggle in a group of 30 riders that stayed away for over 100 kilometres. The breakaway group had 3 or 4 teams that had superior numbers and these teams set about reducing the numbers of the group by a series of attacks. The final successful move of 12 riders contained Tom Diggle who finished a superb 10th on the stage. The rest of the group was swallowed up by the fast finishing peloton where Graham Briggs sprinted to a fine 2nd place in the hectic bunch sprint and a credible 14th place on the day.
Overall this was a good stage for a young team that was guided through the day by Olympian Chris Newton. Chris a former stage winner of this early season race was very complimentary about his young protégés. Things are definitely going to plan in developing these young athletes and we will soon see some podium placing from these talented young men.
Thursday´s stage is a massive day. Starting in Port de Pollenca and doing a circuit that includes the giant climbs of Soller and the Puig before eventually finishing back in Pollenca after 134 km´s outside Tollo´s bar on the seafront. Tollo is a very colourful character who is a long standing friend to British cyclists. I recently met Tollo in February at the teams early season training camp. He is a very charismatic gentleman who says he is "retired from work". Tollo´s idea of retirement seems to be to work at his restaurant and bar in the afternoons and evenings and have the mornings off work to ride his top of the range Pinarello racing bike with his other ‘retired’ friends.
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