Tour of Britain 2024 Stage 2

September 4, 2024 The Queen stage takes the riders 150KM through the North Yorkshire Moors over three category 1 climbs. Eight riders went up the road including Louis Sutton of Team GB, Callum Thornley and Dean Harvey of Trinity Racing, Laurent Gervais and Cade Bickmore of Project Echelon, James McKay of Saint Piran, Nickolas Zukowsky of Q36.5, and Baptiste Veistroffer of Decathlon AG2R Development Team. They had 3 minutes at 100KM to go but were slowly being reeled in by Soudal Quickstep. An attack from the peloton went just before the first climb of Ugglesbarnsby, initiated by Ineos. Nothing came of it but Ineos continued the pressure and dropped all but 40 riders from the peloton still with 76KM to go. A group of 10 got away from the bunch containing many of the main teams. Soudal Quickstep and Ineos didn't have the riders they wanted in that group and had to be active in the peloton to shut it down. Over the top of the Raw Pasture Bank climb, the original break had 45 seconds on the chase of 10 and 1 minute 12 seconds on the peloton. Remco Evenepoel did super-domestique duties for Soudal Quickstep, leading into and up the final climb of Live Bank. Evenepoel brought his teammate Julian Alaphilippe as well as Jake Stewart and Stephen Williams of Israel-Premier Tech, and Oscar Onley of DSM-Firmenich with him and joined the chase group to make about 15 riders. No Ineos rider was able to manage the pace in the Evenepoel group. Ben Swift dropped back from the front group to help Tom Pidcock. They got within 5 seconds but never made it on, leaving Ineos with no representation at the front. The original break was caught by the newly formed Evenepoel group with 47KM to go. Alaphilippe attacked the front group with 32.5KM to go. Williams and teammate Joseph Blackmore, Sutten from the original break, Onley, Mark Donovan of Q36.5, and Tom Donnenwirth of Decathlon AG2R Development Team went with him. Evenepoel and Stewart bridged to make nine at the front with 25KM to go. Williams attacked on a steep climb out of Saltburn Beach with 9KM to go. Onley went with him right away and Alaphilippe clipped on 200M later. The trio went to the finish together. It was a flat final 2KM. Williams was stuck on the front from the 1KM banner. Alaphilippe opened up just before 200M to go. He got around Onley but Williams was strong and wouldn't relent. He kept his lead and took the sprint for the stage win and the overall lead in GC by 6 seconds over Onley.