Lars Petter Nordhaug has won the opening stage of the Tour De Yorkshire.
A race which came to fruition after the successful staging of the Grand Depart and stages in the Tour De France last year, got underway in Bridlington.
The race organised by ASO attracted some big teams and some big names including Sir Bradley Wiggins riding for his new Team Wiggins started with a 174km stage from Bridlington to Scarborough via the North York Moors.
There were big crowds to see the race depart and five riders in Mark Christian, Tom Stewart, Eddie Dunbar, Loïc Chetout and Rasmus Quaade get into a break and take a 4.50 lead.
After sixty six kilometres, the gap was down to 2.30 and they were caught and Tim Declercq of Topsport and Perriq Quemeneur took over with with a lead of 34 seconds with fifty six kilometres to go.
After Marcel Kittel abandoned, the rain came down, there was a big crash with 50.3kms. A couple of Sky riders including Ben Swift who was forced to abandon as did Tim Declercq went down before the riders went through Grosmont train station and took the on the Cote de Grosmont climb.
Perriq Quemeneur of Europcar took the five points on the climb ahead of Garcia and ploughed on alone before being caught and a fifteen man group formed.
Team Sky's Phillip Deignan launched an attack on top of the Côte de Robin Hood’s Bay. Thomas Voeckler of Europcar, Lars Petter Nordhaug of Team Sky, Stéphane Rossetto of Cofidis and Sammy Sanchez of BMC went with him and they took a lead of a minute and ten seconds on the peloton when Nordhaug crossed the finish line first in 4.22.38, followed by Voeckler, Rossetto, Sanchez and Deignan.
Eric Rowsell was the first British rider home in ninth place.
"It s great to take the victory," said Nordhaug to the Team Sky press office.
"With all the spectators here it's massive and I feel like I'm riding at home riding for Sky. This is really great. The team were so strong today, riding all day to make it hard. We were riding for Ben Swift but he crashed pretty hard which is a shame. Then I had to try and do something.
"I felt a bit tired in the start after Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday but after 100km when we started riding really hard I felt better and better. I was afraid of (Samuel) Sanchez and especially Voeckler in the sprint. I tried one attack to see how strong they were but that was only to try and win the sprint.
"This stage was a lot harder than I thought. But that was because we were riding hard as a team and the team did a great job. I think it will be hard for the next two days."