Bike Station Ballater Falling Leaves Stage Race
(words: Sean Gordon)(images: Andrew Innes)
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| Autumn is upon us... |
Fraser Martin (Spokes RT) was rewarded for a weekend of attacking riding with the overall victory, and a stage win, in the Ballater Falling Leaves Stage Race this weekend. Sitting only 6-seconds down on stage winner Craig Wallace (Infisport-Alavanet) after Saturday morning’s prologue, Martin was well within contention, but was arguably still the underdog in the race.
The first road stage saw a breakaway that was established early that had two and a half minutes at one point. However with Martin in 2nd place overall it was left to his Spokes team to chase down the break on the last lap, causing controversy as one of their teammates, Sean Noon, was in the move. It was only Gavin Shuttleworth (Project 51), Alister Watt (Granite City RT) and Scott McCrossan (Paisley Velo RT) that managed to hold off the charging peloton, meaning that the time gaps were still tight into the second day.
Again the break of the day was established early doors on the second road stage. With the expectation of another episode of ‘The Craig Wallace Show’ it was up to the other contenders to take him on. In the end Craig’s efforts were too little, too late as the breakaway held on with Fraser Martin winning the second stage to take the overall and underlining his place at the top of the pile in Scottish road racing.
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| A great season for Fraser Martin |