News - More Success for Raleigh

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With fourth place in Sunday’s Ipswich GP, Team Raleigh-GAC’s Yanto Barker secured the Premier Calendar title for the year long series

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News - More Success for Raleigh

Barker overall men’s title – Raleigh-GAC claim the Team prize in the same series
(Results from Ipswich here)

Going into the final round, Yanto Barker led Velosure-Giordana’s Marcin Bialoblocki by 21 points. With 30 points on offer for the victory, Barker needed to finish within nine places of Bialoblocki to claim the title. However, with Raleigh-GAC also aiming to secure the team competition, the series was far from a foregone conclusion.

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An early escape posed no threat to Raleigh-GAC’s standing in either competition and for much of the race it looked as though the break would succeed. Into the closing stages of the 200km race, the escapees began to tire and to neutralise further attacks, the Raleigh-GAC team took the lead with Rapha to control the race.

With the bunch averaging 35mph, the break was soon reeled in and with the main bunch all back together for the finish it came down to a bunch gallop. Race winner Adam Blythe and second-placed Chris Opie stole a couple of metres on Barker at the line as he settled for 4th place, crucially five places ahead of Marcin Bialoblock to win the overall title.

With Evan Oliphant (8th), Morgan Kniesky (12th) and George Atkins (19th) all placing well, the team wrapped up the team competition too.

Speaking after the race, Yanto Barker said: “The team did such an awesome job today. When a group of riders went up the road, we weren’t overly concerned that we weren’t represented because we had a plan and we stuck to it. With about 60k to go, the boys started riding and I said look, if you want to start riding then we’re going to have to go hard to get something out of this. Rapha were of the same view of us and we pretty much put all our resources into the chase”.

“It was really good to be able to catch them because they were going so fast. We felt in control but never safe, when you’re doing 55kph it’s never safe and there are a lot of corners coming into town. Wilks (Ian Wilkinson) went the wrong side of the barriers with 400m to go and if that had been me, that could have been the whole series screwed so you never know.”

“I’m really happy with the series win, it didn’t happen by accident, it’s being a lot of hard work and it’s been very carefully calculated and planned.”

The win for Yanto Barker means Raleigh-GAC have taken three of the overall honours in Britain’s two Elite men’s National Series this season. During July, Alexandre Blain wrapped up the Elite Criterium Series. Now with Yanto Barker taking the overall title in Ipswich, and Raleigh-GAC taking the overall team prize, it not only shows the individual strength but also the astute management provided by Team Principal Cherie Pridham.

“In both the Elite Crit Series and the Elite Road Series the lads have been tactically excellent, working in harmony as a team to achieve a common goal. The victories for both Yanto and Alex are incredibly well deserved but I’d like to dedicate the team award to the unsung heroes, both riders and backroom staff, who’ve worked tirelessly for every victory this season.”

“Significant victories like these are the best rewards for our equipment sponsors including Raleigh, MOA, Uvex, iPro, SRAM, Motorex, Schwalbe, Look, Elite, Cole, FSA, Fizik, Motorex, Unior, Kinetik and Huub. This is all the proof you need that these products are used by the very best to achieve outstanding things.”

“This gives us a fantastic send-off for the Tour of Britain and we’ll look to build on that success with a strong showing in the UK’s biggest stage race.”

Newport Nocturne
A special mention must also go to Raleigh-GAC’s French star Matthieu Boulo. Not only was he an important part of the Ipswich GP team but the night before he took a solo victory Newport Nocturne, winning by over a minute. The young Frenchman is no stranger to solo victories, having done the same at the Tour Series in Redditch earlier this season. He won’t have ridden too many races though where he wins his own body weight in beer!

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