Maxgear clinch Revolution Championship (+ picture gallery)

This season’s Revolution championship reached its climax at the Manchester Velodrome on Saturday evening, with a capacity crowd enjoying a thrilling night’s racing that ended with Maxgear crowned the championship winners, taking the title by a single point from Team Sky, with Le Col two points further back in third place.

The event was preceded by the National Madison Championships, won by Peter Kennaugh and Luke Rowe ahead of Jon Mould and Tom Moses in second, and Alex Dowsett and Tom Murray who took third place.

In the evening session, the packed crows – including road.cc’s Mat and Dave, who snapped the pics in the gallery – were treated to some great racing from the likes of Ed Clancy and Andy Tennant, making their debut for Rapha Condor Sharp, and Craig MacLean, who had recovered from a flu virus, but lost out to Ross Edgar in the Sprint Final.

The early stages of the Team Elimination for the Elite Endurance riders saw Revolution Allstars, Le Col, Manchester City Council, Rapha Condor Sharp and Maxgear fall by the wayside, leaving CHEP and eventual victors Team Sky, helped by Alex Dowsett, to fight it out for the win.

The DHL Future Stars races saw Chris Latham make a clean sweep of all the boys’ events on the evening, although he missed out on the Madison earlier in the day and also failed to overhaul Sam Lowe at the top of the season-long standings, while Emily Kay saw off the challenge of Amy Roberts to clinch the girls’ championship.

Back to the elite events, the 1km Madison Time Trial saw Clancy and Tennant power to victory in 57.144, but their efforts on the evening weren’t enough to get Rapha Condor Sharp off the bottom of the points table and the London-based team was left with the wooden spoon for the series.

The Team Points race saw Le Col and Team Sky fight it out, both with an eye to their championship standings, with Manchester City Council and Revolution Allstars also in the mix, but it was Team Sky that eventually prevailed.

The evening saw the return of the popular Australian Pursuit event, which had been well received in its Revolution debut prior to Christmas, with Luke Rowe of Revolution Allstars taking the victory from Stephen Burke of Motorpoint-Marshalls Pasta.

Next up was the Scratch Race, blown wide open by an attack from Dean Downing, and although another four riders, including another Team Sky man, Peter Kennaugh, managed to get away, they were brought back well ahead of a finale that saw Rowe take another win for the Revolution Allstars.

The final event of the evening – and, of course, the 2010/11 championship – was the Team Sprint, with the final won by Ross Edgar of Team Sky, Pete Mitchell of Manchester City Council and Philip Hindes of Revolution Allstars, who came home in a time of 46.089, 9/10ths of a second quicker than their opponents, Craig Maclean of Chep UK, Kian Emadi of Le Col and Roy Van Den Berg of Maxgear.

The Maxgear team’s consistency throughout the season saw them crowned the series champions, continuing its progress in the four years since it was founded, although as team manager and rider Wayne Greenhalgh confessed, “ “Sometimes we’ve been too successful.”

He continued: “We seem to have a knack for spotting talent and then losing the rider to a professional team, but we also feel really proud when we see these riders doing well, It means we have to keep re building the team but that’s what we’ll continue to do and hopefully help riders achieve their ambitions.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, with the emphasis set to focus from the track to the road, Greenhalgh said: “We’ve a whole new Junior men’s squad for 2011 and all the riders are raring to go .I’m really excited because they are first year riders and all have massive potential and they also ride different disciplines including Cross and MTB. We’re sure they will translate this power onto the road and we’ll have 2 years to develop their road craft. “

The team has also announced that its two main sponsors, Maxgear.co.uk and Champion Systems.co.uk will continue their sponsorship in 2011.