Revolution 35: Maxgear take the victory as Luke Rowe shines for Sky on his debut

Maxgear Racing powered in to the lead of the Revolution Championship at a packed Manchester Velodrome tonight, while the individual star of the evening was undoubtedly Team Sky new recruit, Luke Rowe.

Going in to Revolution 35 It did took like a big ask for Team UK Youth to hold on to their overall lead in the Championship without Steven Burke who put in such a dominant performance in the previous round and so it proved. Despite their best efforts come the end of the night the UK Youth boys found themselves seven points behind Maxgear Racing who topped the Championship table with 501 points.

Young Welshman Rowe though stole the show racing for the first time in the colours of he new team. He started as he no doubt means to go on by winning the scratch race.

It’s also going to be a good year for new Team Sky recruit, Luke Rowe. He raced for the first time in his new Team Sky colours here, and started with an emphatic victory in the Scratch Race. As a former national Madison champion, Rowe is not only prolific on the track, but has a bright future on the road ahead of him.

“It’s a great honour, as soon as I pull the Team Sky jersey on today there’s a massive smile on my face,” said Rowe. “It’s always a great vibe here, it’s always a great night out so I’m really happy to be back at Revolution.”

He continued: “Last time I rode the track was at the Revolution, 2012 is going to be a hard year on the road. There’ll be a lot of grafting, a lot of working for my teammates; I’ve just got to get myself out there.”

Rowe continued his winning streak  in the Australian Pursuit; a crowd favourite involving 12 equally positioned riders playing the ultimate game of cat and mouse. Rowe went from the gun and fought off a late challenge by Chris Opie to prove himself in this true test of stamina.

Rowe didn't win everything though, in the 1km Madison Time Trial, he and teammate Andreas Muller lost out to a CHEP UK’s partnership of Jonathan Dibben and Morgan Kniesky who won in an impressive 58.422. He lost out in the elite points race too where Jon Moulds accumulation of early points and consistent riding helped him to top Rowe's 20 points by five.

Team Maxgear won the team elimination race where their continental star Chris Grasmann shone while combining with his promising young teammates Adam Yates and Harry Tanfield to secure victory

In the DHL Future Stars, Emily Kay and Jake Ragan both kept their impressive leads with consistent performances on the night. It would be very difficult to edge out both of these in-form riders at the last Revolution event.

Highlights of Revolution 35 will be televised on ITV4 on Monday eventing (9 Jan) at 7pm.

Sir Chris Hoy will be the big draw at Revoltion 36 on 28 January, there are still a limited amount of tickets left at www.cyclingrevolution.com.