It's often said that professional cycling is closer to its fans than any other sport. You can ride the same roads, you don't need to buy a ticket to watch and, as I found in Rotherham, the pros often train amongst us mere mortals. Like their dad before them, Dean and Russell Downing have been riding this chaingang since they were "knee-high to a grasshopper". The same goes for Ben Swift too and several other racers who joined me in a sizeable group, marauding through the South Yorkshire countryside. Rather than just hanging on though, I tried my best to make the ride just a bit more interesting when it reached a crescendo...

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