“Ate that bunny on main climb of day! Went down a treat!”
It’s texts like that which make it all worthwhile – mission accomplished; Dan Fleeman’s Easter bunnies delivered.
Vik, Dave and Ivan all ‘passed’ on the Tour DoonHame gig; that left it down to Jimmy Leslie and I.
The Saturday night crit around Victory Park used to be the traditional pilgrimage – now it’s Easter Monday.
It was chilly at 08:00 when we jumped in the Audi to head south; but nice and mild by the time we were ‘Doon Hame.’

Some riders were not having the best of luck; Finlay Young hit the deck yesterday in the neutralised zone and ended up in hospital – through no fault of his own.
It’s a hard sport.

Dan Fleeman (Raleigh) was sporting his new stubbled Mod look and looking forward to a day of trying to defend Matt Cronshaw’s yellow jersey – no easy task with Rapha’s flying Aussie, Zak Dempster just two seconds back.

Dan’s personal aspirations for the race disappeared on Saturday when he punctured six times.
We delivered his bunnies and headed off in search of riders to pester.

British 25 mile record holder Dave McCann (Giant) is just back from the Philippines and hadn’t enjoyed Saturday’s freezing conditions.

No wonder, he’s super skinny.
We had to have a word with Rapha ‘Man in Black,’ James McCallum; ‘the last time you spoke to us, you told us that John Herety had banned stubble!’
‘But he’s no’ here!’ chortled our James.

Team mate and man of the moment with wins in the Dengie Marshes and Rutland – Aussie, Zak Dempster was causing us sartorial concerns over the limited amount of flesh on display between his sock tops and shorts.

‘Not in our day,’ we lamented in harmony, shaking our heads.
Steve Skuse’s 20 Three C boys looked to have good morale with Marcel Six up in the top ten – but he’d finish an eventual 15th on final GC.

Big Magnus Backstedt (Team UK Youth) didn’t look too far from the shape that took him to that Giro TTT win a year or two ago, with Garmin – the green intermediate sprints jersey he was wearing would stay on his back at the finish.

It was nice to see former New Zealand champion, Jack Bauer (Endura); looking lean and mean in his mountains polka dots – he’d also retain his jersey until the end in addition to securing 3rd overall.


Start time and we headed up to Wether Hill at 48 miles.
Six clear, including Big Magnus and Sigma’s Wouter Sybrandy was ‘maillot jaune virtuelle.’

A minute passed and there was Evan Oliphant, trying to get across.

What puzzled us a little was that leading the pursuit of the Endura man was – Endura.
It transpired that his team weren’t impressed with Evan’s attacking at the foot of the climb when he saw Zak Dempster puncture.

Dempster had nabbed the first intermediate sprint of the day, taken the three second bonus and would have been leader on the road if the break wasn’t up the road.
But the fact is that the break was up the road and Sybrandy was leader on the road.



The bunch was well strung out, with faces which became progressively more distorted the further down the line you went.


And that was our only look at the race before the finish.
The sun was baking Castle Douglas as the leaders rounded the last left hander.
But we couldn’t agree with the commentator’s assessment that whoever was first round that bend would win – there was a good 500 metres to the line.
Johny McEvoy from Phil Griffiths’ very professional Motorpoint team was the fastest; Matt Cronshaw couldn’t get in the top three to grab any bonus seconds so it was Dempster who won the GC with Cronshaw second and Bauer third.


Time to pester more riders – VeloVeritas regular Tobyn Horton had a bad Saturday but was happy to be part of McEvoy’s victory.

The Channel Islander is staying in York but finding the negative style of UK races a little hard to get used after the cut and thrust of Belgium.

Endura’s Alex Wetherall (eventual 10th on GC) is another man who’s easy to talk to.