We love cycling!
fintech… bike racing… London
At ignitr we love cycling. We’re committed and passionate about speed and innovation, both on and off the bike. So what better way to show it than to sponsor the London Nocturne city criterium? Here’s our race report.
Saturday 7th June, Smithfield Market. The London Nocturne. Heavy rain throughout the morning cleared the air and the grease from the road. The sun came out and the crowds followed.
2014 is the first year ignitr have sponsored the City Criterium and the first year that the race has had it’s own unique sponsor. And despite being a young company we’ve been committed to professional bike racing from day one. And as we like to do things differently, we brought a few surprises with us. To start with we invited the legendary Gary Beckett, team soigneur from Garmin Sharp to offer free massages to all the riders in the city criterium.
And so we managed to become a bit of a pre-race hangout station for some of the pros racing in the elite race that evening…
We lined up alongside teams from across the city of London including JPMorgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Jupiter Asset Management, Igloo regeneration fund, PWC, Stott & May, Malmaison, Cadwalader, Wiggle, Mount Anvil, New London architects and others to race eight laps of Smithfield Market in the glorious evening sunshine.
The race started hard and fast, with riders from Wiggle, JPM and Stott & May getting away early. But an early crash on lap one caused chaos for the pack with a few riders hitting the deck hard.
The fastest riders in the pack soon broke away and by the end of lap two had asserted a commanding lead of almost twenty seconds. In the winding circuit the main group soon broke up and the remainder of the race became an exercise in cornering hard and fast. All the riders rode to the limits of their ability, and by lap four the pain of oxygen deficit was clearly visible. But we stayed competitive, and some great cat-and-mouse chases were seen throughout the race.
The team from Stott and May led the early part of the race and looked to have it in the bag. But three laps from the end team Wiggle got their game-face on and their team assembled to take and narrowly hold the lead. The rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s a rider’s eye video of the race, courtesy of Simon Hare:
Full race results are below, but congratulations to Wiggle for the win and also to Tanya Oram from ignitr for fastest female rider. See you next year!
Full race results:
2014 Ignitr City Criterium, London Nocturne
1 Richard Mardle, Stott and May
2 Barry Hughes, New London Architects
3 Andy Shackel, Wiggle
4 Derek Bouchard-Hall, Wiggle
5 Ben Simmons, Wiggle
6 Nick Sturman, Stott and May
7 Christian Rudolf, BAML
8 Aaron Saturley, Stott and May
9 Austyn Tusler, Stott and May
10 Matt Heusch, Malmaison
11 David Cowie, JP Morgan
12 Stuart Clapp, Ignitr
13 Alex Simmonds, PwC
14 Luis Miguel, Malmaison
15 John Ellis, PwC
16 Simon Hare, PwC
17 Jonathan Berryman, BAML
18 William Downing, JP Morgan
19 Craig White, New London Architects
20 James Corry, JP Morgan
21 John Woodward, Malmaison
22 Kawai Chung, Cadwalader
23 Nick Field, BAML
24 Colley Brenan, Malmaison
25 Tobias Schaffrin, New London Architects
26 James Henderson, BAML
27 Michael Lane, Ignitr
28 James Lees, Ignitr
29 Youssouf Bamba, JP Morgan
30 Chris Horn, Igloo
31 Richard Parkin, Igloo
32 Chris Brown, Igloo
33 Tom Gough, PwC
34 Alex Kay, Cadwalader
35 Sean Wilkins,Mount Anvil
36 Darren England, Mount Anvil
37 John Tathan, Igloo
38 David Cottle, Cadwalader
39 Tanya Oram, Ignitr
40 Mark Litz, New London Architects
41 Peter Turner, Jupiter
42 Jon Spring, Mount Anvil
43 David Carling, Jupiter
44 Helen Rawlinson, Mount Anvil
45 Ruby Bhatoya, Jupiter
46 Ella Green, Jupiter
