Raleigh-GAC’s Bernie Sulzberger sprinted into top place in the points competition last night after a blisteringly fast race on round three of the Tour Series.
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Crowds lined the Oxford city centre circuit in the warm spring sunshine to watch the Raleigh boys battle eleven other teams in a fast and furious race up and down the mile long circuit on the main A4144 St Giles’ road.
The tight corners caused numerous crashes early on in the race, with Tobyn Horton and Daniel Holloway both coming down. Daniel had a particularly heavy crash, and was singing the praises of his Uvex helmet after the race, which saved him from a particularly nasty injury.
Bernie claimed second place in almost every intermediate sprint and came home 10th in the final standings. He now has a healthy seven point lead over Marcel Six in the Sprint competition.
Bernie said “That was a very hard course, especially with the tight hairpins bends. It’s good to get the (sprinters) jersey, it’s pretty tight in that competition. We have another two rounds this week and we’re looking to hang on to it as long as we can.”
Team Manager Cherie will now focus efforts on getting the team higher up the standings: “I’m happy for Bernie taking the sprinters jersey, it’s got us on the podium but we have some work to do for the next round on Thursday. We have a strong team so we’ll regroup and put up a good fight at Redditch. Getting the jersey is a bonus but the Halfords Tour series is a team event and we know what we have to do as a team to get up there. We’ll keep working hard.”
You’ll find a bunch of images from last night’s event at Raleigh-GAC’s Facebook page. You can also catch Raleigh-GAC on ITV4 tonight (Wednesday 23rd May) at 8pm.
Divisional Champs trophy comes back to Raleigh
The Tour Series jersey tops off a great few days for Bernie as he also won the East Midlands Divisional Championship Trophy for Raleigh-GAC with a solo win at the Sutton Bonnington road race event on Sunday 20th May.
Bernie’s win allows the trophy to return to Raleigh’s HQ following Jamie Sparling’s win at the same event in 2011. Chapeau to Raleigh-GAC’s Evan Oliphant too, who came second in the Scottish National Road Race in Balfron, which also took place last Sunday.
Coming up…
Busy week ahead! Round Four of the Series takes place in Redditch tomorrow (Thursday 24th May) and Round Five is on Friday in Aberystwyth. Then we’re bombing over to the Loughborough University criterium on Saturday and Hillingdon GP on Sunday.
See you there!
