Today’s Maldon Dengie Tour marks the start of what could be a hugely competitive Premier Calendar series.
All six of Britain’s UCI Continental teams, highly ambitious and, in several cases, newly strengthened, will line-up against each other on British soil for the first time this season for race that, in a conscious echo of Paris-Roubaix (the race is billed as ‘the hell of the east’), contains numerous farm tracks and gravel roads, and is typically contested in notorious cross winds.
Defending champion, Zak Dempster, knows what it takes to win at Dengie. Racing last year in the colours of Rapha Condor Sharp, he soloed to victory after dropping a breakaway group in the final 10 miles. “That doesn’t happen very often, so you have to enjoy it when does,” he recalls.
RCS had split apart the race, attacking from the start, recording a one-two finish, and posting four riders in the top 10. This year could be different. Dempster and teammate Scott Thwaites will return to Essex in the green and black of Endura Racing, whose hugely impressive start to the season is perhaps typified by the white jersey of UCI EuropeTour leader resting on the shoulders of Jon Tiernan-Locke, another acquisition from the ranks of Rapha Condor Sharp, a team whose new focus on developing young talent in support of a core of senior riders will see them field a mix of youth and experience today.
“At the moment, as has been the case from the beginning, we’re interested in winning races,” says Dempster of his new team. “Everyone on the team wants to win and everyone will get their chance to do so. We will all contribute to each other’s seasons and share that success. I’m sure the guys at the Med [the Tour of the Mediterranean] were a part of helping JT take out both races [Tiernan-Locke also won the Tour du Haut Var]. It’s important we all work hard for each other.”
And what of Dempster’s own chances? “Pretty much every race I go to, I’m trying to win. I would love to win again on Sunday, but the most important thing is that one of the team wins.”
Dempster says he is happy with his form and eager to take his first win of the season as soon as possible. A hard pre-season training camp focussed on “quite specific, race-style training” has been followed by a packed programme of early season races, the most recent of which saw him recover from an opening stage crash at the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali serious enough to require hospital treatment to contribute to the team’s second place on the third day’s team time trial. “I was taken to hospital for x-rays. I hit my head, but returned and rode strongly on the other stages. The stages were mountainous, which doesn’t really suit me that well. I was playing a supporting role for Paul Voss,” says Dempster. Such support helped Voss to record four top 10 finishes on his way to seventh overall.
Kristian House and Wouter Sybrandy attest to the emergence of a more Continental style of racing the British peloton of later. Dempster adds there is no difference in the level of effort required to win races in the UK and in Europe. “To win races in the UK you have to be on a level to win races in Europe,” he says. He cautions young riders against rushing to France or Belgium to “get their heads kicked in just for the sake of going abroad.” “The Premier Calendar is an important stepping stone for young guys coming through,” he adds.
“Endura, Rapha, Raleigh are all coming back to the UK to win races because of the prestige of the Premier Calendar and the exposure that’s so important to the sponsors.”
Dempster acknowledges the increased risk of accidents and mechanicals posed by the additional dirt road sections, but, citing cross winds as a more significant factor in shaping last year’s race, denies that fortune will decide the outcome of today’s race. “You will see that in Europe, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix being the two biggest, there is a plethora of races that depend to an extent on luck, but a big part of it is how aggressively you race. It’s important that if you crash or puncture, you don’t count yourself out,” he says.
Few will discount the defending champion from today’s proceedings. Dempster followed his victory in Dengie last year by winning the East Midlands Cycle Classic a week later, and two weeks after that adding the Tour Doon Hame to his palmares. Hungry to open his account for his new team, one that has started 2012 in emphatic style, Dempster can be counted on to give everything today.
