Short&Sweet – Talking to Tom Stewart

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Talking to Tom Stewart about his second place in the Dutch Arno Wallaard Memorial UCI 1.2 Road Race on April 19

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Short&Sweet – Talking to Tom Stewart

Lots of teams go away and lots of good deeds go unnoticed by riders. Tom Stewart’s second place in the Dutch Arno Wallaard Memorial UCI 1.2 Road Race on April 19 was one.

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First attack of the CiCLE Classic – Tom Stewart

So after the CiCLE Classic VeloUK spoke to Tom about the result. The race was pan flat Tom explained adding they 195k and in that there was only 400 metres of climbing. A lot less than the CiCLE Classic!

“It was unbelievable” he explained, absolute chaos and I have never known anything like it. There wasn’t ten seconds where you could chill out and have a breather, it was flat out, fighting for position non-stop. We are quite lucky in England, you can move up where ever you are and it is pretty easy to get to the front in comparison.”

As modest as ever, Tom says “To be fair, it could have been myself, Tobyn (Horton) or Mike Northey in that move. We were pinging off the front together just nicely but I managed to get in one that stuck and in the back of my mind, I was saying to myself ‘Tobyn would not mess this up’, ‘Mike would not mess it up’, ‘I can’t mess it up’.”

“It was a long long race with so many things coming and going and when we hit the finishing circuit, Mike was in a break that got pulled back, and Tobyn had been, so it was my turn and mine stuck. It was a group of about 12 and it was hit and miss whether we would get caught.”

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“A guy had pinged off the front with a couple to go and he was only ten seconds ahead and the bunch was only 20 seconds behind so it was really stressful. I came into the final corner, stood on the pedals expecting there to be nothing left but I felt great and started going past people and low and behold, I got to the front to get second (won the group sprint) which was a bit of shock. At the end of a race like that, it isn’t always down to who can sprint, but who has what left in the tank.”

“It is reassuring to get a result like that” he said knowing the team’s manager Roger Hammond had signed him from Raleigh over the winter. “It’s good to pay the team back and not just with results but the way we ride. At Reservoir, we had three guys in the eight man break and the rest of us were lining up ready to go. It shows that it isn’t just about results but about how we get those results.”

“The career (he finished Uni last year and is now a full time bike rider) is going well and I’m getting the experiences I want to. I’m getting to try new things as I’d planned but I feel I am sitting on the cusp of my comfort zone, being challenged but not being thrown in the deep end too much”.

1 WILSON Edvin Team Joker 04:14:13
2 STEWART Thomas Madison Genesis 00:16
3 ATZORI Umberto Koga Cycling Team
4 DUYN Huub Cyclingteam de Rijke
5 THöMEL Tino Team Stuttgart
6 BAKKER Dennis Metec – TKH Continental Cyclingteam
7 SCHULTING Peter Parkhotel Valkenburg CT
8 VAN ZANDBEEK Ronan Cyclingteam de Rijke
9 OCKELOEN Jasper Parkhotel Valkenburg CT
10 DE VRIES Berden Cyclingteam Jo Piels
30 HORTON Tobyn Madison Genesis @27
76 NORTHEY Michael James Madison Genesis
79 MCNALLY Mark An Post – Chain Reaction
81 REUS Kai Parkhotel Valkenburg CT
83 RASMUSSEN Alex Riwal Cycling Team 00:59

 

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