ALTHOUGH it as billed as a "fun and friendly competition" the now traditional Traders Race which opens the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling is a fierce and frantic affair with its fair share of sweat, tears, and 'trading standards'.
Admist the hordes of red shiny faces glistening with sweat and beady eyes made feverish with dreams of glory, one can detect amongst all the desperate grunting and groaning, a fiercely competitive streak that will stop at nothing to seize the treasured mantle of 'Captain of Commerce' and 'Shopkeeper Stallion.'
Yet amongst the colourful ranks of tightly-clad lycra bursting at the seams there could only be one winner, and that was last year's 'Trader Tornado' and Gateway Cycle's wonder child, Steve 'the sorcerer' Stokes.
Led off by Abergavenny's very own cycling supremo Becky James, 20 riders huffed and puffed their way around six laps of the same course used minutes later for the Elite Circuit Series.
KeepersFit Ian Ward proved he was game for a laugh by dressing up in a Sumo wrestler's costume which was full of air as the race began but became deflated by the second lap and was flapping about at the end.
From start to finish, these traders and paraders provided the gathered assembled with non-stop, red-hot, no-holds barred action.
There was controversy in the final lap with Ian Davies of Anthony Davies Ltd poached the lead from Stokes and looked almost odds on favourite to secure his prized place in Abergavenny folklore.
Yet it was not to be. Davies took a tumble on Frogmore Street, and seizing his opportunity to successfully defend his title, a cooly calculating Stokes proved what a shrewd operator he is by effortlessly slotting into pole position and writing his name once more into the history books.