ADAM
BLYTHE

This will be the third time that Sean Yates will be overseeing the Derbyshire quick finisher’s programme, after driving the car behind him at both NFTO and at Peter Sagan’s Tinkoff galacticos. They can at least be confident of more coffee and cake miles at LeBlanq, and plenty of time to discuss their respective merits over the cobbles of the Northern Classics that have meant so much to each of them. Adam was earmarked as a pavé specialist at 17, when he tasted glory in Flanders Fields by snatching the Junior’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne from under the noses of the locals, leading to a change of tack. He departed the warm bosom of the Team GB Performance Plan to learn his trade on the unforgiving roads of Belgium in a rugged apprenticeship. It served him well, as protected rider status was afforded him at the likes of Omega Pharma, BMC, Orica GreenEDGE and Lotto-Soudal in a sparkling ten-year professional waltz through the rarified atmosphere of the higher reaches of cycling. As well as a couple of coveted red-and- blue banded white National Champion’s jerseys, he used the trampet of his fearsome mentor Philippe Gilbert’s attack to bring home the London-Surrey Classic. Four Grand Tour appearances establish his credentials as a rider with true class who will no doubt gleefully extend the occasional toe into the rump of his Saga-qualified LeBlanq elders.