It was all change today on the Tour of Britain as Emilien Berges of the Agritubel team leapt clear of an eight rider group to claim the stage and take the overall race lead. The hilly route through the Blackdown Hills from Chard to Burnham on Sea in Somerset was never going to favour the sprinters and Alessandro Petacchi (LPR Brakes) had a particularly difficult day. Petacchi who won the first stage on Sunday and was overall race leader at the start today suffered an early mechanical problem and finished over 13 minutes down on the young Frenchman Berges to end the day back in 24th place on the general classification. Berges broke clear with 8Km to go to win the stage by 30 seconds from his team-mate Geoffroy Lequarte. The latter lead the race for 80Km of the 185Km stage and now lies in second place behind Berges for an Agritubel one two. Berges now heads the general classification by 29 seconds from Lequarte, but nine of the top 10 are still within 50 seconds of the leader so there is still everything to play for in what may well turn out to be the most open Tour of Britain to date. British riders lead by Ian Stannard (Great Britain) occupy sixth to 10th place in the general classification, but there is better news for home fans in the points race where Roger Hammond (Columbia) took the lead from Petacchi by finishing in 12th place. Kristian House (Rapha Condor) also held on to his lead in the King of the Mountains competition. Tomorrow’s stage takes the riders on a 156Km route from Worcester Race Course to Stoke on Trent. Tour of Britain stage three results: 1 Emilien Berges (Fra) Agritubel, 4hrs 49mins 22secs 2 Geoffroy Lequarte (Fra) Agritubel, at 30secs 3 Gabriele Bosisio (Ita) LPR Brakes, same time 4 Daniel Martin (Ire) Garmin, same time 5 Benny De Schrooder (Bel) An Post, same time 6 Ian Stannard (GB) Great Britain, same time 7 Steve Cummings (GB) Barloworld, same time 8 Daniel Fleeman (GB) An Post, same time 9 Frederik Veuchelen (GB) Topsport Vlaanderen at 39secs 10 Russell Downing (GB) Pinarello RT – Candi TV at 1min 45secs Selected others: 12 Roger Hammond (GB) Columbia, at 1min 56secs 15 Kristian House (GB) Rapha-Condor, at 2mins 21 Jonathan Bellis (GB) CSC-Saxo Bank, at 2mins 5secs 30 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Columbia, at 13mins 2secs 37 David Millar (GB) Garmin, at same time 41 Rob Hayles (GB) Great Britain, at same time 78 Geraint Thomas (GB) Barloworld, at same time 82 Ben Swift (GB) Great Britain, at same time General classification (after four stages): 1 Emilen Berges (Fra) Agritubel, 10hrs 6mins 17secs 2 Geoffroy Lequarte (Fra) Agritubel, at 29secs 3 Gabriele Bosisio (Ita) LPR Brakes, at 36secs 4 Ian Stannard (GB) Great Britain, at 37secs 5 Steve Cummings (GB) Barloworld, at same time 6 Daniel Fleeman (Ire) An Post, at 39secs 7 Benny de Schrooder (Bel) An Post, at 40secs 8 Daniel Martin (Ire) Garmin, at same time 9 Frederik Veuchelen (Bel) Topsport, at 49secs 10 Russell Downing (GB) Pinarello, at 1min 50secs Selected others: 12 Roger Hammond (GB) Columbia, at 2mins 6secs 15 Kristian House (GB) Rapha-Condor, at same time 19 Jonathan Bellis (GB) CSC-Saxo Bank, at 2mins 15secs 24 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) LPR Brakes, at 13mins 2secs 26 Danilo di Luca (GB) LPR Brakes, at 13 mins 4secs 27 Rod Hayles (GB) Great Britain, at 13 mins 6secs 35 Ben Swift (GB) Great Britain, at same time 49 David Millar (GB) Garmin, at same time 56 Geraint Thomas (GB) Barloworld, at same time 76 Chris Newton (GB) Rapha-Condor, at same time 84 Bradley Wiggins (GB) Columbia, at 13mins 58secs
- News

Tour of Britain Stage 3 Berges wins to lead overall

Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £2.49. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
No Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
"carefully/slowly weaving through some cars ...... and while trying to squeeze through the last bit" Maybe its just me but maybe these are the lines that start off the driver on the irrational road rage, Yes we are allowed to filter through traffic but sometimes a bit of patience is required too. If you are ending up so close that you are making contact with someone else's property then maybe just hold back a little until there is space. I am not attempting to justify or suggest that the response was proportionate but lets be honest the chances are that the OP may have played down thier own actions that triggered the nutter.
The 15.5mph (25kph) limit is stupid? What's stupid is charging down mixed use paths on an untested, illegal e-moto at 40 mph. Which is what these wastes of organs do.
@kyzyl2 I'm extremely sceptical that this app could measure power with any accuracy, but as far as I understand it is not the case that it completely ignores windspeed; as the inventor says, it uses weather as one of the variables. Presumably it takes real-time wind speed and direction from nearby weather stations and factors that into its calculations. Of course this may be wildly inaccurate if you're climbing up a bare hillside and the nearest weather station is in a sheltered valley half a mile away, but it does make some attempt to account for wind speed and direction.
@Rendel Harris we used to rent an allotment in a village near Basel and there was an annual autumn party/festival organised by the gardeners. One year as we were about to leave we went to ride our (unlocked - never a need here) bikes and my wife’s was missing. Our allotment neighbours were outraged and were getting ready to get the police in when… up the road rides a gentleman on my wife’s bike, weaving around in a drunken manner.. He gets back and receives the wrath of our neighbour (not us we were in giggles) and he explains that he had to go home to feed his cat and just needed to borrow a bike!
The physics principle exploited is that opposing forces equal applied forces. Conventional power meters measure applied forces--very well but admittedly not cheaply. This app appears to measure acceleration and slope to determine two of four important opposing forces. Notice something missing? Wind...the dominant opposing force when riding on the flats or in a pack. This app assumes that wind speed equals bike speed in order to "guess" the critical opposing wind force it does not measure. If you always ride solo and never ride when the wind blows maybe this app will work OK for you. Otherwise you are wasting your money. There is no such thing as free power.
Not gonna lie, when I saw the name LAP I thought 'Here we go again, yet another pretentious brand like MAAP, PNS, ASOS and Rapha that wants to grab a piece of the 'bragging rights' cycling category. But, to my surprise, what they bring to the table seems pretty well considered. Let's see if this idea gets some traction.
The difference in the UK is that the police don't try to hide their pride in paying no attention to bicycle theft, in order to maintain credibility with their motorhead mates. When the British Transport Police actually declared they weren't interested (OK, there were some provisos to that, but what they really meant was: cyclists can get stuffed) in cycle theft, they were forced to retract that officially but continued in practice to teach cyclists a lesson by making no effort to catch the thieves (I assume - no personal experience of this particular police-encouraged crime wave)
Might have been usefull to describe the bike / brand etc..?
Operation "Sorry Not Attempting Prosecution"? Certainly some forces see it as a success!