2026 Sherpa Performance Stage Race: preview and startlist
A shortened road bike time trial shifts the weight onto bonus seconds, as Elliott Colyer, Matthew Webber and Rowan Baker head a compact field for the third Sherpa Performance Stage Race, 1-2 August 2026
Two 60-minute criteriums, a six-kilometre time trial and 127 kilometres around Abberton Reservoir: the Sherpa Performance Stage Race packs a domestic season into one weekend. This year, the stage that shaped the first two editions has been cut from eight kilometres to six, leaving the strongest time triallists less room to build a buffer and making every bonus second elsewhere count.
Sherpa Performance is an Essex-based coaching business that also runs a small portfolio of races, and the stage race is its flagship. Now in its third year, the format has not moved: two circuit races at Colchester Northern Gateway Sports Park on the Saturday, then a road bike time trial and a road race around the Layer and Birch lanes on the Sunday. A Regional stage race runs alongside the National B event across the same courses, with its own jerseys and a Masters 50+ prize.
Alex Pickering won the inaugural edition in 2024 on the strength of the time trial. Twelve months ago the race went to Alex Pritchard (DAS Richardsons), who took the lead only on the final stage: four riders won stages across the weekend, among them Josh Horsfield on the Saturday, and the jersey passed from Phil Large to Timothy Strickland before settling on neither of them. Over 31 hours and four stages, a bad hour is difficult to recover.
The stages
Saturday 1 August | Stages 1 and 2
The Northern Gateway circuit is 1.6 kilometres of purpose-built tarmac, one of the longest facilities of its type in the country, and both Saturday stages are 60 minutes plus laps around it: the first anticlockwise from 10:30, the second clockwise from 14:30. Long straights and sweeping bends make it quick, and quick makes it unforgiving—a metre lost in the wrong place on this circuit is difficult to recover.
Green jersey points come at intermediate sprints roughly 20 and 40 minutes into each stage, notified the lap before, with three, two and one points on offer. Stage finishes pay five down to one. The bonus seconds attached to those same sprints are what make the criteriums a general classification event rather than a warm-up: one second to the winner of each intermediate, then three, two and one at the line. A rider who took everything across both Saturday stages would bank ten seconds, and on a six-kilometre time trial course ten seconds is a long way.
Frank Longstaff swept both circuit stages in 2024 and Horsfield and Laborde split them in 2025, but in a 30-odd rider field a committed break has a better chance of staying clear than it would in a bunch of 60.
Sunday 2 August | Stage 3
The National field starts the road bike time trial from 09:00, at one-minute intervals in reverse general classification order. Riders will have had their start times since Saturday evening.
This is road bike-only time trial, which narrows the equipment gap and rewards riders who can hold a hard position and a hard number for eight or nine minutes.
The course runs on open roads from the Old Kings Head, north past Abberton Reservoir, to a finish at Layer-de-la-Haye—the same roads the afternoon’s road race uses. At six kilometres it is unlikely to settle the general classification outright, but it will establish the gaps that shape Sunday afternoon.
Sunday 2 August | Stage 4
Eleven laps of the 11.6-kilometre Layer and Birch circuit, 127 kilometres, from 14:00 to a finish beside the church of St John the Baptist around 17:00. Each lap crosses the causeway over Abberton Reservoir twice.
Familiar to anyone who has ridden the Jock Wadley Memorial, the circuit is flat without being straightforward. Narrow lanes, exposed sections across the water, and a rise into Layer-de-la-Haye at the finish all give a strong rider somewhere to apply pressure, and by Sunday afternoon there will be plenty who cannot answer. Green jersey points are on offer at the end of laps 2, 4, 6 and 8, so the classification can still change hands late.
Riders to watch
Frank Longstaff (DAS Richardsons) knows exactly what this weekend asks: he won both circuit stages at the inaugural edition in 2024. He also arrives on the strongest recent form in the field, with third at the Colne round of the National Circuit Series, sixth at the National Circuit Championship and seventh at Otley behind him before he took his first series win of the season at the Dawlish Grand Prix this month. In March he was second at the Jock Wadley Memorial on the same Abberton Reservoir roads. A long-range sprint sharpened on closed circuits is a serious weapon across two 60-minute stages and an uphill finish.
Frank Longstaff (DAS Richardsons) wins in Dawlish. Image: Mathew Wells/SWpix.com
Luca Nicholson (Velo Club Baracchi) has the best strike rate in the field and the shortest CV. The 19-year-old followed second at the Wally Gimber Trophy by winning the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race with a seven-kilometre solo attack, then took the Eastern Road Championship by jumping from a four-man group on the final climb. In June he won again at the Welland Valley Grand Prix, bridging alone to the leaders before beating them in the sprint. Three wins, three different methods. Two of those wins came in the Under-23 Open National Road Series, whose fourth round is at Upper Denby on Sunday. Nicholson is not on the startlist for it, and with only one round to come after this he is effectively trading a series lead for a weekend in Essex.
Elliott Colyer (Aero CLCTV) has the most directly relevant result in the field, having won April’s Totnes–Vire Two-Day — one of the only comparable multi-stage National B weekends on this year’s calendar — with a final-stage solo attack. A fortnight later he repeatedly tried to break clear at the Andrews Trophy before finishing third, then followed fifth at the Chitterne Road Race with eighth at the South Molton Grand Prix. The pattern is clear: the 22-year-old races aggressively and from distance, having founded Aero CLCTV after leaving TAAP Kalas to compete on his own terms. With only team-mate Archie Wright alongside him, that willingness to commit early is both his greatest weapon and the reason he will be closely marked.
Colyer wins at Totnes Vire 2 Day. Image: PelotonPix / Dave Dodge Photography
Matthew Webber (TAAP Kalas) beat Colyer in the Andrews Trophy sprint, powering up the drag of Pan Lane to take a National B victory on Essex roads. He also finished fourth overall at Totnes–Vire, making him and Colyer the only riders entered with stage-race top-fives this season. Since joining TAAP Kalas from Wolfox CAMS Le Col, Webber has also ridden the Rás Tailteann and made the break on its final stage. Patient in a move and quick from a small group, he looks particularly well suited to the rising finish at Layer-de-la-Haye.
Matthew Gilmour (Nopinz RT) has produced one of the field’s most consistent seasons: second at the Portsdown Classic, fourth at the Royal Navy Cup, ninth at the Jock Wadley, winner of the Chitterne Road Race and third at the London Dynamo Road Race. His Chitterne victory also showed his tactical range, as he followed Jack Baldie’s late acceleration before coming past inside the final 150 metres. That ability to read a finish rather than simply survive to it should serve the 21-year-old well across two criteriums and the uphill run into Layer-de-la-Haye, although he has no recorded result since mid-June.
Rowan Baker (JAKROO Handsling Racing) is the most accomplished road rider entered. Winner of the 2025 Peak 2 Day, the Kennel Hill Classic in March and a stage of this year’s Rás Tailteann while guesting for the Isle of Man, he was also eighth at the Rutland–Melton CiCLE Classic and third behind Nicholson at the Eastern Road Championship. Dogged by a knee injury, his racing has been sparse since. At the level he showed in March and April, Baker would start as the clear favourite; if he arrives short of racing, the initiative passes to Colyer, Webber, Longstaff, Nicholson and Gilmour.
Rowan Baker (JAKROO Handsling Racing) on the Somerberg. Image: Josh Wheeler/SWpix.com
Joshua Horsfield (Cycling Sheffield) won the opening criterium here twelve months ago, when racing for Reflex Nopinz, and later made the seven-rider final-stage break at Totnes–Vire alongside Colyer and Webber. Sixth at the Portsdown Classic is the highlight of a quieter 2026, but a return to a circuit on which he has already won could bring him back into contention.
Joe Adlam-Cook (RideRevolution Coaching CT) is the intriguing candidate for Stage 3. The Cambridge University CC product’s background in time trials and hill climbs makes him an obvious threat in a six-kilometre road-bike test. Adlam-Cook’s teammate James Ambrose-Parish is the other late addition worth marking. A regular National B winner in the past and a fixture of the London circuit scene, the 28-year-old took the national elimination title at the opening round of the Lloyds National Track Series in Derby last autumn. That kind of finishing speed across 60 minutes is precisely what the two Saturday stages reward.
Numbers may matter as much as individual form. Moonglu SpatzWear bring Jonny Britton, Joel Hurt, Ben Pease and Jack Rees, while Schils–Doltcini Racing Team field Alexander Cross, Patrick Fotheringham, Samuel Hughes and Cameron Hurst. In a field of 29, four riders are enough to control a criterium or force others to chase on Sunday. Morris Bacon (DAP Cycling Club) was second at the VC Norwich Road Race a fortnight ago, Louis Mann (Army Cycling Union) finished third at the Inter-Services Championship on 15 July, while Huw Watkins (Stolen Goat 4Endurance) and Benjamin Arey (O’Neills Spirit Racing Team) add further under-23 interest.
Timings
Saturday 1 August — Colchester Northern Gateway Sports Park
Time
Race
09:00
Regional Stage 1
10:30
National Stage 1 — 60 minutes, anticlockwise
13:05
Regional Stage 2
14:30
National Stage 2 — 60 minutes, clockwise
Sunday 2 August — Layer-de-la-Haye and Abberton Reservoir
Time
Race
08:00
Regional Stage 3 — time trial
09:00
National Stage 3 — six-kilometre time trial
10:30
Regional Stage 4 — road race
13:00
National Stage 4 — 127-kilometre road race
16:00
National Stage 4 finish
Weather
The current forecast for Colchester is settled and warm across the weekend: highs of around 24°C on both days, with only a small chance of rain. Wind will matter more than temperature on roads this exposed, particularly on the two crossings of the reservoir each lap on Sunday.
Two 60-minute criteriums, a six-kilometre time trial and 127 kilometres around Abberton Reservoir: the Sherpa Performance Stage Race packs a domestic season into one weekend. This year, the stage that shaped the first two editions has been cut from eight kilometres to six, leaving the strongest time triallists less room to build a buffer and making every bonus second elsewhere count.
Featured image: Sarah Swinscoe
Use code TBC10 at 4Endurance.co.uk for 10% off your order.
What is it?
Sherpa Performance is an Essex-based coaching business that also runs a small portfolio of races, and the stage race is its flagship. Now in its third year, the format has not moved: two circuit races at Colchester Northern Gateway Sports Park on the Saturday, then a road bike time trial and a road race around the Layer and Birch lanes on the Sunday. A Regional stage race runs alongside the National B event across the same courses, with its own jerseys and a Masters 50+ prize.
Alex Pickering won the inaugural edition in 2024 on the strength of the time trial. Twelve months ago the race went to Alex Pritchard (DAS Richardsons), who took the lead only on the final stage: four riders won stages across the weekend, among them Josh Horsfield on the Saturday, and the jersey passed from Phil Large to Timothy Strickland before settling on neither of them. Over 31 hours and four stages, a bad hour is difficult to recover.
The stages
Saturday 1 August | Stages 1 and 2
The Northern Gateway circuit is 1.6 kilometres of purpose-built tarmac, one of the longest facilities of its type in the country, and both Saturday stages are 60 minutes plus laps around it: the first anticlockwise from 10:30, the second clockwise from 14:30. Long straights and sweeping bends make it quick, and quick makes it unforgiving—a metre lost in the wrong place on this circuit is difficult to recover.
Green jersey points come at intermediate sprints roughly 20 and 40 minutes into each stage, notified the lap before, with three, two and one points on offer. Stage finishes pay five down to one. The bonus seconds attached to those same sprints are what make the criteriums a general classification event rather than a warm-up: one second to the winner of each intermediate, then three, two and one at the line. A rider who took everything across both Saturday stages would bank ten seconds, and on a six-kilometre time trial course ten seconds is a long way.
Frank Longstaff swept both circuit stages in 2024 and Horsfield and Laborde split them in 2025, but in a 30-odd rider field a committed break has a better chance of staying clear than it would in a bunch of 60.
Sunday 2 August | Stage 3
The National field starts the road bike time trial from 09:00, at one-minute intervals in reverse general classification order. Riders will have had their start times since Saturday evening.
This is road bike-only time trial, which narrows the equipment gap and rewards riders who can hold a hard position and a hard number for eight or nine minutes.
The course runs on open roads from the Old Kings Head, north past Abberton Reservoir, to a finish at Layer-de-la-Haye—the same roads the afternoon’s road race uses. At six kilometres it is unlikely to settle the general classification outright, but it will establish the gaps that shape Sunday afternoon.
Sunday 2 August | Stage 4
Eleven laps of the 11.6-kilometre Layer and Birch circuit, 127 kilometres, from 14:00 to a finish beside the church of St John the Baptist around 17:00. Each lap crosses the causeway over Abberton Reservoir twice.
Familiar to anyone who has ridden the Jock Wadley Memorial, the circuit is flat without being straightforward. Narrow lanes, exposed sections across the water, and a rise into Layer-de-la-Haye at the finish all give a strong rider somewhere to apply pressure, and by Sunday afternoon there will be plenty who cannot answer. Green jersey points are on offer at the end of laps 2, 4, 6 and 8, so the classification can still change hands late.
Riders to watch
Frank Longstaff (DAS Richardsons) knows exactly what this weekend asks: he won both circuit stages at the inaugural edition in 2024. He also arrives on the strongest recent form in the field, with third at the Colne round of the National Circuit Series, sixth at the National Circuit Championship and seventh at Otley behind him before he took his first series win of the season at the Dawlish Grand Prix this month. In March he was second at the Jock Wadley Memorial on the same Abberton Reservoir roads. A long-range sprint sharpened on closed circuits is a serious weapon across two 60-minute stages and an uphill finish.
Luca Nicholson (Velo Club Baracchi) has the best strike rate in the field and the shortest CV. The 19-year-old followed second at the Wally Gimber Trophy by winning the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race with a seven-kilometre solo attack, then took the Eastern Road Championship by jumping from a four-man group on the final climb. In June he won again at the Welland Valley Grand Prix, bridging alone to the leaders before beating them in the sprint. Three wins, three different methods. Two of those wins came in the Under-23 Open National Road Series, whose fourth round is at Upper Denby on Sunday. Nicholson is not on the startlist for it, and with only one round to come after this he is effectively trading a series lead for a weekend in Essex.
Elliott Colyer (Aero CLCTV) has the most directly relevant result in the field, having won April’s Totnes–Vire Two-Day — one of the only comparable multi-stage National B weekends on this year’s calendar — with a final-stage solo attack. A fortnight later he repeatedly tried to break clear at the Andrews Trophy before finishing third, then followed fifth at the Chitterne Road Race with eighth at the South Molton Grand Prix. The pattern is clear: the 22-year-old races aggressively and from distance, having founded Aero CLCTV after leaving TAAP Kalas to compete on his own terms. With only team-mate Archie Wright alongside him, that willingness to commit early is both his greatest weapon and the reason he will be closely marked.
Matthew Webber (TAAP Kalas) beat Colyer in the Andrews Trophy sprint, powering up the drag of Pan Lane to take a National B victory on Essex roads. He also finished fourth overall at Totnes–Vire, making him and Colyer the only riders entered with stage-race top-fives this season. Since joining TAAP Kalas from Wolfox CAMS Le Col, Webber has also ridden the Rás Tailteann and made the break on its final stage. Patient in a move and quick from a small group, he looks particularly well suited to the rising finish at Layer-de-la-Haye.
Matthew Gilmour (Nopinz RT) has produced one of the field’s most consistent seasons: second at the Portsdown Classic, fourth at the Royal Navy Cup, ninth at the Jock Wadley, winner of the Chitterne Road Race and third at the London Dynamo Road Race. His Chitterne victory also showed his tactical range, as he followed Jack Baldie’s late acceleration before coming past inside the final 150 metres. That ability to read a finish rather than simply survive to it should serve the 21-year-old well across two criteriums and the uphill run into Layer-de-la-Haye, although he has no recorded result since mid-June.
Rowan Baker (JAKROO Handsling Racing) is the most accomplished road rider entered. Winner of the 2025 Peak 2 Day, the Kennel Hill Classic in March and a stage of this year’s Rás Tailteann while guesting for the Isle of Man, he was also eighth at the Rutland–Melton CiCLE Classic and third behind Nicholson at the Eastern Road Championship. Dogged by a knee injury, his racing has been sparse since. At the level he showed in March and April, Baker would start as the clear favourite; if he arrives short of racing, the initiative passes to Colyer, Webber, Longstaff, Nicholson and Gilmour.
Joshua Horsfield (Cycling Sheffield) won the opening criterium here twelve months ago, when racing for Reflex Nopinz, and later made the seven-rider final-stage break at Totnes–Vire alongside Colyer and Webber. Sixth at the Portsdown Classic is the highlight of a quieter 2026, but a return to a circuit on which he has already won could bring him back into contention.
Joe Adlam-Cook (RideRevolution Coaching CT) is the intriguing candidate for Stage 3. The Cambridge University CC product’s background in time trials and hill climbs makes him an obvious threat in a six-kilometre road-bike test. Adlam-Cook’s teammate James Ambrose-Parish is the other late addition worth marking. A regular National B winner in the past and a fixture of the London circuit scene, the 28-year-old took the national elimination title at the opening round of the Lloyds National Track Series in Derby last autumn. That kind of finishing speed across 60 minutes is precisely what the two Saturday stages reward.
Numbers may matter as much as individual form. Moonglu SpatzWear bring Jonny Britton, Joel Hurt, Ben Pease and Jack Rees, while Schils–Doltcini Racing Team field Alexander Cross, Patrick Fotheringham, Samuel Hughes and Cameron Hurst. In a field of 29, four riders are enough to control a criterium or force others to chase on Sunday. Morris Bacon (DAP Cycling Club) was second at the VC Norwich Road Race a fortnight ago, Louis Mann (Army Cycling Union) finished third at the Inter-Services Championship on 15 July, while Huw Watkins (Stolen Goat 4Endurance) and Benjamin Arey (O’Neills Spirit Racing Team) add further under-23 interest.
Timings
Saturday 1 August — Colchester Northern Gateway Sports Park
Sunday 2 August — Layer-de-la-Haye and Abberton Reservoir
Weather
The current forecast for Colchester is settled and warm across the weekend: highs of around 24°C on both days, with only a small chance of rain. Wind will matter more than temperature on roads this exposed, particularly on the two crossings of the reservoir each lap on Sunday.
Provisional startlist
Late entries will be accepted until Friday 31 July – email hello@sherpa-performance.com
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