Steve Cummings finished second on day two of the Tour of Britain, on a brutal stage from Carlisle to Kendal that saw Julien Vermote pip the British rider to the victory.
Vermote, of Etixx-Quick Step was involved in a breakaway that stayed away for nearly the entire day and never left the head of the race, with only Cummings having the legs to challenge him in the closing stages.
The beastly Beast Banks in Kendal saw Vermote outpace the Demension Data rider as the gathered crowds roared the duo on, and the Belgian cross the line with his arms aloft.
Strong rides from Cummings and Team Sky’s Ben Swift saw the British riders move up in the general classification to second and sixth overall respectively.
Andre Greipel wore the yellow jersey on the Cumbrian stage but would start day three in the sprint jersey after winning all three intermediate sprints.
image: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/921//zuvvi/media/bc_images/bc_road/2016/20160905-vermote1-3000.1473091717.jpg
Carlisle start
The peloton was cheered out of Carlisle and into the scenic northern regions of the Lake District in Cumbria, as the 2016 Tour of Britain entered the second day of racing.
A group of 15 riders, which included race leader Andre Greipel in the yellow jersey, broke off the front of the bunch and developed a lead of around five minutes within the first half an hour of riding.
Greipel won the first sprint of the stage in Hesket Newmarket, with JLT Condor’s Conor Dunne and Team Sky’s Nicolas Roche taking the points for second and third.
By the time the leaders reached the second sprint in Cockermouth, the peloton has reduced the gap to one minute and 46 seconds, but once again it was top points to the German race leader and second place for Ireland’s Dunne.
The teams from Movistar and One Pro Cycling led the chase as the race headed for the mountainous second half of the day’s ride.
Roche picked up six points in the king of the mountains competition as he topped the Whinlatter Pass first, at the head of the breakaway group, as the gradient started to force some of the sprinters to drop out of the pack.
Despite big efforts being put in by the Movistar riders, the gap failed to reduce between the leaders and the chasing peloton, which meant the second set of climb points also went to the breakaway.
With 40km to go, Adam Blythe of the Great Britain Cycling Team and Karol Domagalski of One Pro Cycling made a break off the front of the peloton, in an attempt to bridge to gap to the leaders; Greipel, meanwhile had just picked up maximum points in the third sprint of the day.
The Struggle is real
As the breakaway left Ambleside and hit the bottom of The Struggle, Greipel’s time at the front of the race was over as he and fellow sprinter Dunne dropped off the back of the leaders.
Not contesting the mountainous stage himself, Mark Cavendish led his Dimension Data teammate Steve Cummings to the front of the peloton and Cummings joined a group of climbers that powered up the ascent, caught Greipel and reduced the gap on the leaders.
A group of five - Roche, Vermout, Bert-Jan Lindeman, Jacopo Mosca and Xandro Meurisse - remained at the head of the race, which climbed into the mist with Rohan Dennis of BMC hunting them down at a merciless pace.
As the race descended off the Struggle’s moorlands, a chasing group containing British riders Cummings, Ben Swift from Team Sky and Team Wiggins’ Mark Christian as well as WorldTour names Dan Martin and Tom Dumoulin reduced the gap on the leaders to 26 seconds with less than 20km to go.
Cummings dropped the rest of the chasing pack with just over 13km to go and caught the leaders and attacked straight off the front, but was not allowed to get away.
Etixx-Quick Step’s Vermote attacked and Cummings went with him and left the rest of the leaders behind, ensuring the second stage would be decided as a two man race.
As the pair hit Kendal’s Beast Banks, the final climb up to the finish line, Vermote, who was in the breakaway all day, outsprinted Cummings with 150m to go and crossed the line with delight on his face.
Great Britain Cycling Team's top finisher was Tao Geoghegan Hart in 22nd place.