Harry Tanfield delivered another impressive show of strength to finish second in the UCI 1.2 Ronde van Overijssel on Saturday.
The 23-year-old, from Great Ayton, was beaten by Piotr Havik in a thrilling duel on the streets of Rijssen, Holland.
Havik, who joined World Tour outfit Team Katusha Alpecin as a stagiare at the end of last season, had hit out with 15km to go.
And only Tanfield had the power to bridge the gap before the pair slugged it out in the finale of the 199km Dutch battle.
The Canyon Eisberg rouleur last week delivered an inspirational victory in the opening stage of the Tour de Yorkshire.
Having spent a long, hard day in the break, he remained seated to outgun four rivals on the hoods in Doncaster. Not this time, though.
Tanfield, who finished ninth in the race last season, was delighted to get on the podium. He said:
“We were going downhill from 800m to 300m to go. From the last corner, there was around 200m to go.
“There was a bit of a headwind but I just went for it. I gassed it as hard as I could just before the corner to try to get a gap.
“It almost worked but he held on and I ended up just leading him out really. I sprinted on the drops, too. Never again!”
Similar to his Tour de Yorkshire triumph, Tanfield had spent much of the Ronde van Overijssel up the road.
This time he was part of a 13-man break which was ultimately reeled in. But the North Yorkshire talent had the strength to go again. He added:
“We had four minutes at one point, with every team represented except Lotto Soudal.
“The gap was ridden back to just 40 seconds with 25km to go and then they made the bridge around 5km later.
“Piotr, who won, went with 15km to go. Two Roompot guys began ramming it on the front then.
“But with 8km to go they gave up, so I whacked it solo. One of them took it up again and was full on towing 20 guys for 3km but I was still putting time into him.”
Tanfield ended up catching Havik with 2km remaining of the contest, setting up a blistering dash for the line.
Max Kanter, from Team Sunweb’s development squad, sprinted to third place – 11 seconds adrift of the front two.
Meanwhile, Tanfield’s team-mate Charles Page rode superbly to finish 32nd at 2min 3sec. Louis Rose-Davies finished in the same group for 67th.
The trio, alongside Chris Opie and Rory Townsend, will tackle the Profronde van Noord-Holland in Alkmaar on Sunday (11am).
