Pearl Izumi Tour Series Round 3 – Edinburgh

After a one year hiatus, the Pearl Izumi Tour Series rolled back into Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, for the third round of this year’s competition.

After a successful round, including the first round of the Matrix Fitness Women’s Grand Prix, in Motherwell at the beginning of the week, the capital was looking for a successful showing on their slightly altered Grassmarket circuit.

Events kicked off in the late afternoon with the Grassmarket Scramble, a hill climb race up Victoria Street, moving quickly on to the Tour Series support race, where amateur cyclists from the area compete on the same circuit as the pros, with Stephen Dent of Spokes Racing Team sprinting from the last corner to a commanding victory.

After that the Brother Pro Am Corporate Grand Prix, where 10 teams of 5 riders were joined by a pro cyclist, for a relay type event with each rider taking a lap of the course.

The cobbles of the Victoria Street and the Royal Mile, luckily stayed dry for the early events, but as half past seven and the elite Tour Series race approached, the heavens opened, and soaked the cobbles into a dangerous state of sliminess, just in time for the pros.

In the main race, Graham Briggs made it two in two for JLT Condor, by following up on his team mate Jon Mould’s victory in Motherwell on Tuesday. Briggs took flight on his own, never to be seen again by the chasing bunch, to take an impressive solo victory.

In the team competition, however, JLT Condor, after their team wins in the first two rounds, were bested by the 2015 Tour Series defending champions Madison Genesis.

The Tour Series moves on to Redditch next Thursday, before going to Aberystwyth, Durham, Stoke-on-Trent, Stevenage, Croydon then finishing in Portsmouth on 9 June.