John Skates, Andew Windsor, Steve Lloyd

Manchester Two Day

Saturday 3rd-Sunday 4th April 2004

Deeside Olympic riders Andrew Windsor, John Skates and Stephen Lloyd recently took part in the Manchester Two Day for 2nd and 3rd cat riders.

After a two mile prologue on Saturday morning there was a 35 mile road stage around 7 laps of the relatively flat Lach Dennis Circuit in the afternoon. Following strong rides in the prologue where all three riders finished within 30 seconds of the leader, meaning that any one of them could take the yellow jersey if they won the stage and took the time bonuses on offer. With this in mind the riders showed their aggression by attacking the field. Despite a number of successful sorties the field regrouped for the finish, where Andrew showed his sprinting prowess, easily winning the big bunch sprint.

On Sunday the team had the yellow jersey to defend on the notoriously difficult Sparropit circuit in Derbyshire. Unfortunately it didn’t all go to plan, as despite covering all the splits and after some impressive riding particularly by John Skates a small group escaped over the top of the final climb. Despite a valiant chase to the finish, again led by John the break gained too much of an advantage to be closed down and Andrew lost the jersey. In the closing miles Steve escaped from the chasing group to ensure that he moved in t the top ten on GC.

The Stage and overall results were as follows

Prologue 1. Duncan Orme (Lancaster CC)
8. Andrew Windsor
11. Stephen Lloyd
37. John Skates

Stage 2 1 Andrew Windsor
14. Stephen Lloyd
18 John Skates

Stage 3 1. Pete Sadler (Science in Sport)
9. Stephen Lloyd
15. Andrew Windsor
27. John Skates

Final Overall 1 Pete Sadler
9. Stephen Lloyd
10. Andrew Windsor
27. John Skates

Thanks to Andrew Windsor for this report.

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