World TT champion staying safe at Tour de Yorkshire
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Bradley Wiggins starts his next chapter with Team Wiggins at the Tour de Yorkshire.
Bradley Wiggins rode with his new team for the first time.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Bradley Wiggins and Team Wiggins pose for a photo ahead of the Tour de Yorkshire.
Sir Bradley Wiggins of Great Britain and Team Wiggins looks on prior to Stage 1 of the Tour of Yorkshire
Bradley Wiggins won’t begin the key preparations for his Hour Record attempt in London on 7 June until the Tour de Yorkshire finishes, but the Briton has already seen positive indications that he should be able to set a new mark in this illustrious test.
“Everything’s gone OK since Roubaix. All of the initial track sessions were way above what we were expecting, because I hadn’t been on the track for a year so we didn’t really know where we were going to be in terms of the record. It’s been a good transition, and there’s just a month to go now,” said Wiggins.
Speaking at the Tour de Yorkshire, Wiggins said that as well as helping his young teammates on the WIGGINS team, his goal at the race was simply to keep out of trouble. “I’d like to stay safe because I don’t want to put the Hour in jeopardy. I want to be part of the race. I don’t want to just sit at the back every day,” said Wiggins, who will be very interested to find out how compatriot Alex Dowsett fares when he makes an attempt this afternoon in Manchester on the Hour Record mark of 52.491km set by Australia’s Rohan Dennis in February.
Asked about former hour record holder Francesco Moser’s comment that Wiggins should be aiming to challenge Chris Boardman’s 1996 of 56.375km, which was removed as the official mark when the rules on aerodynamic aids were changed, the world time trial champion insisted the Italian was wrong.
“I disagree strongly actually because Chris was 20 years ahead of his time. I’ve got that bike that he rode in 96 at home. Aerodynamically that Superman position is streets ahead of anything that you’re allowed in the regulations,” Wiggins explained.
“The bike itself also beats anything from the modern era in the wind tunnel. Other than the skinsuits, which have moved on since Chris’ time, he was 20 years ahead of his time.”
Wiggins confirmed that he is intending to take part in Hull City Road Club’s open 10-mile time trial on 16 May. “I hope Dowsett’s comp record is up for grabs. It’s a good course for that. I think Michael Hutchinson had the record on that course. I think on the day it could be a 16-minute course,” said Wiggins, who will be racing in the world champion’s rainbow bands.
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“I think that’s the beauty of it. There’s such a history attached to the 10-mile time trial in this country. It would be so nice to go there and do it as world champion. It will be fantastic for the other people as well. They’ll get the chance to go back into work on the Monday morning and when people ask them what they did at the weekend, they’ll be able to say, ‘I rode against a world champion, a Tour de France winner.’ There aren’t many sports where you can do that. You can’t go up the park and have a kick around with Steven Gerrard. It’s quite unique in that sense,” said Wiggins.
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).
