Tour Series Round 1: Home win for Rapha Condor Sharp at Canary Wharf

City workers and cycling fans alike were treated to a fast and furious first round of the 2010 Halfords Tour Series at Canary Wharf last night, with Londoner Tony Gibb of CyclePremier.com-Metaltek snatching victory by a tyre’s width from the evergreen Malcolm Elliott of Motorpoint-Marshall’s Pasta.

This being the Tour Series, though, the classification that really counts is the team one, and again the spoils here went to the locals, with home team Rapha Condor Sharp putting paid to any suspicions they might be suffering from jet-lag after returning from the Tour of Japan at the weekend, with Dean Downing the best placed of their riders, coming in third behind Gibb and Elliottt, with team-mates Dean Windsor and Graham Briggs coming in fifth and sixth, respectively.

The pace was high from the very start, and any escapes that did form were quickly pulled back on the 1km circuit, shaped like an elongated rectangle with tied turns at either end and the landmark Canada Tower, still Britain’s tallest building, in the centre.

Kuota-road.cc, of course, were there in the mix too, always in the thick of the action, and did enough to take eighth place in the team classification, and we’ll bring you the team’s views on the race as soon as we can.

One new feature of the Tour Series this year is the Boardman Bikes Sprints Competition, and t was a rider from a team sponsored by another bike company, Raleigh’s Liam Holohan, who becomes the first wearer of that jersey.

Before the Tour Series race, British Road Race Champion Kristian House of Rapha Condor Sharp, who won a stage of the Tour of Japan last week, claimed another victory when he took the sprint after riding the anchor lap for Barclays Capital in the six-lap pro-am Canary Wharf Corporate Challenge race.

You can catch all the action from Canary Wharf tonight on ITV4 at 7pm, and the next race is in Durham on Thursday, with more information available at www.tourseries.co.uk.

Round One Results

Team
1) Rapha Condor Sharp
2) Endura Racing
3) Motorpoint-Marshalls Pasta
4) Team Raleigh
5) Pendragon-Le Col-Colnago
6) Sigma Sport-Specialized
7) CyclePremier.com-Metaltek
8) Kuota-road.cc
9) Team Corley Cycles
10) Team Ireland

Individual
1) Tony Gibb (CyclePremier.com-Metaltek)
2) Malcolm Elliott (Motorpoint-Marshalls Pasta)
3) Dean Downing (Rapha Condor Sharp)