Ominous grey clouds didn’t dampen the chaos of the Le Mans style start. The usual chaos ensued with 250 odd cyclists tripping over each other in a desperate attempt to find their bikes at the end of the run.

After lap one Robin Seymour of team Helly Hansen / Giant led National XC champion Paul Lasenby of Team Marin. Elliot Baxter of team Raleigh came in third and team Haro in fourth. But with another 23 hours 20 odd minutes there’s plenty of time to catch up.

Team Schwinn BIKEmagic with Mark James came in approx 5 minutes behind the leaders. ‘Come on Schwinn / BIKEmagic!’

More later, if our laptop doesn’t run out of batteries.

And they’re off