Alex Paton displayed his pure grit & determination to come away from the Tour of Britain with the red sprinter's jersey. After a thrilling finale on the final day in London, the 28-year-old won the final intermediate sprint of the eight-day race ahead of Matt Holmes, who fought him all week.

The fight for the jersey ended with a long 1km sprint with Paton going deep into his reserves to respond with a perfectly timed response to Holmes' long attack, which would have seen him take the jersey had Alex not taken any points. We might be biased, but we like to think Paton's forward-thinking approach to wheels & tyres (big fan of tubeless, and races on 60-65psi!) contributed to his ability to tie up the jersey.

When I last wrote a piece for this blog, 9 months ago, I’d just managed to climb Ventoux in a respectable time, claim a dubious cardiac efficiency victory over Laurens Ten Dam, and had started to dip my toe deeper into the uber geeky world of cycling power figures. From the hundreds of messages that I haven’t received, I know you’re all wondering how I could possibly top that, well here’s how.

The Tour de Yorkshire is done and dusted, but one rider making their mark in the sand is Canyon Eisberg rider Harry Tanfield. Claiming victory in the opening stage of the tour, Harry sent Hunt HQ energy levels into the stratosphere! Tanfield spent the day in the break, pushing the limits of the chasing peloton. Coming into the final moments of the 182km stage finishing in Doncaster, Tanfield’s rivals launched an early sprint to the line, but in a stunning display of class, it was Tanfield who came storming pass – all while sprinting seated!

Hunt-sponsored CX superstar, Gosse van der Meer, has won again on his tremendous return to form following his awful knee injury sustained during the UCI World Cup CX round at Namur late last year. Formerly racing within the traditional team structure of Tarteletto-Isorex, Gosse now rides for and by himself, in a joint effort of support between Bombtrack Bicycle Co and ourselves.

Whilst we don't have a race report available (although we'll be featuring Gosse in our On The Drops real soon), we do have some amazing photography from Canyon's RADCROSS event in Koblenz on Saturday.

This week's On The Drops comes from everyone's favourite smiley climber, Maximilian Stedman. Max has had a strong start to the 2018 season, already bagging a 6th place in a (very) hard Chorley GP. Following victory in the UCI 2.2 Tour of Quanzhou Bay in December 2017, Max is clearly carrying good long-term form, so is one to watch ongoing. Speaking from personal experience, however, he's not a good rider to draft behind.