Lewis Askey returned to winning form on Wednesday, the NSN Cycling Team rider producing a dominant performance to take victory in the opening stage of his home race, the Tour of Britain Men.
The 25-year-old all-rounder doesn’t win often, indeed, his win in Lincoln was only the third of his career, and the last of those came at last year’s 4 Jours de Dunkerque well over a year ago. If Wednesday’s performance is anything to go by, more success is surely on the way.
It’s not as though Askey has failed to show his talents. This year alone he was fourth in stage 17 of the Tour de France, took two top 10s at Paris-Nice, third at Tro Bro Léon and there have been other top 10s too, including second place at the British Road Nationals.
But Askey was dominant in Lincoln, making the race with an attack on the second ascent of the short, steep and cobbled ascent of Michaelgate to create the winning breakaway, then catching Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) the final time up the same climb when the Belgian seemed set for his own victory.
Alone over the top with 400m still to race, Askey then held off the attentions of no lesser riders than Filippo Ganna (Netcompany-Ineos) and Tim Wellens (UAE), eventually winning by two seconds from the Italian.
"I've been pretty close quite a few times this year, like at Nationals," Askey said. "I've had a couple of seconds, a couple of thirds. So to come away with a win and put my hands up in the air, I think that's why I ride my bike. I'm so happy to be able to do that again this year.
"My nan and grandad were here to watch, so that was super special."
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They’d have been impressed even had they not been his grandparents, Askey creating his success on what is a notoriously difficult climb to judge.
Michalegate has featured in the British national championships more than once, and is also the iconic climb of the Lincoln GP, one of the country’s highest profile domestic races.
Lewis Askey (NSN) on his way to winning stage 1 of the 2026 Tour of Britain Men in Lincoln (Image credit: Getty Images)
"I have done this course once before in the national championships quite a few years ago now," he admitted. "To be honest, it was a really hard race for me to manage because I was solo in the front group where the other teams had two guys. I just had to pick the guys that I thought would bring it back and just count the numbers that were going each time.
"I had been feeling really good for the last week or so, and knew I'd have the legs to be able to do a good effort and at least be close to the win. I just needed to get myself in that position. I thought it had nearly gone at the end, but yeah, I managed to have the legs to bring it back in the final."
With Askey in the late breakaway were representatives of each of the five WorldTour teams in the race, meaning the chasing peloton were without the squads best able to bring them back. This has created some huge time gaps on the general classification, with 12th place 2:19 behind Askey and 16th place a massive 3:30 back, something that helps his ambitions for the week.
"I came here with an eye on the GC in the first place," he said "I knew that this stage was going to kind of decide the whole week, a lot of people maybe didn't expect there to be as big time gaps, but we did. I had to perform today to show that I was capable to come and ride for GC."
The only puzzling thing about Askey’s victory was his celebration.
"I had a bet with my girlfriend because there was a video of me that they found on YouTube when I must have been about seven years old doing Gangnam style on the rollers, and they were giving me a bit of stick for that. So I said, OK, next time I win a bike race, I'll do that as a celebration."
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A recent addition to the Cyclingnews staff, Owen Rogers is an experienced journalist, working as a freelancer covering the sport for various magazines and websites for more than 10 years.
Initially concentrating mainly on the women's sport, he has covered hundreds of race days on the ground and interviewed some of the sport's biggest names.
Living near Cambridge in the UK, when he's not working you'll find him either riding his bike or playing drums.
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