A year after breaking his neck, Seb Grindley completed his comeback by taking victory at the North Yorkshire Grand Prix at Ampleforth Abbey.
The Lidl-Trek Future Racing rider pointed to his black armband as he crossed the line, and dedicated the win to Finlay Tarling, who was tragically killed over the weekend, and Shane O’Brien, who passed away earlier this year.
The race, formerly known as the Ryedale Grand Prix, was contested in a downpour, which made for slippery and challenging conditions. However, Grindley managed to get amongst a nine-rider breakaway, led by the Wheelbase CabTech Castelli pair of Tom Martin and Tom Armstrong, with the latter eyeing overall victory in the both the National Road Series and the Rapha Super-League.
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“The race went in my favour from the beginning,” Grindley told Cycling Weekly. “I was much happier out the front. The group established itself early – maybe a quarter of an hour into the into the race. From there it just made things simple.
“We kind of just rolled through until the five finishing loops and then it got quite tactical. It was a lot of attacking, chasing, and ultimately, it was just six guys who came down to the finish, and I came out top on in the sprint.”
Jack Rootkin-Gray and Damien Clayton were second and third, but Grindley has had to overcome major hurdles recently just to get back in the peloton, let alone stand atop the podium.
“I broke a vertebra in my neck at the 2025 National Champs, which ruled out me out for the rest of that season,” he explains. “I had a really good winter and came into the season with good form, which kind of trailed off, unfortunately.
“But I managed to have a couple of weeks off, post-nationals and then a nice training block. And yeah, these two races of the national series that I’ve done in the past couple of weeks have been good for getting the engine going again.”
In the wake of two awful recent events that have left the cycling communities of Britain and Ireland in mourning, Grindley paid tribute to Tarling and Shane O’Brien.
“Obviously there have been a lot of emotions over the last few days, with Fin passing away,” he said. “He was a good friend of mine.”
“The timing of the win was nice – to get a victory I can honour him with. I dedicated it to Fin and also to Shane, the brother of my teammate, Liam O’Brien. He passed away not that long ago as well.”
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