Cyclist Conor White has picked up his first major prize on the roads of England by being named King of the Mountains at the Lincoln Classic.

White was in the thick of the action throughout the one-day race on Sunday, which involved 13 ascents of Michaelgate, a cobbled medieval hill with an average gradient of 13.3 per cent.

Trying to attack whenever he could, White finished the race in seventh place in just his third race in the UK and was rewarded for his efforts with victory in the king of the mountains competition.

“It was a good course and pretty flat for the most part apart from the climb,” White said.

“Our team plan was to just cover stuff that we need to and after that when people started getting tired to look for a move to go.

“I ended up in a break of six on lap three. We were working together and my team then let me know that my team-mate was coming up, so I sat up and waited for him to get there.

“The group grew to 15 people and every so often people would be dropped. Going into the last lap it came down to seven people and three of us were on the same team. I knew I didn’t have the legs to sprint up the climb on the last lap but I led out my other team members on to the hill but all three of us were cooked and we finished fifth, sixth and seventh, but we ended up winning the team competition.”

White has been in the UK for only a month and achieved this top-ten finish in only his third race. It’s been an eventful time as he was sick before his first race and stopped to help an injured team-mate in his second.

“I’ve been here for a month now and I’m really happy with the decision I made to come over,” he said.

The first race was two days after I got here and I was feeling sick, so it wasn’t that great. The second one I was in the front group but my team-mate had a really bad crash. I shouted over to him to see if he was OK but he was unconscious so I stopped and waited with him. I threw away my race, but I had to do it and I would do it again.

“I spent the last three seasons in the US and everyone is fast but out here the courses are much more difficult and everyone that does these races is so strong. It definitely feels like the level is higher here than in the US so getting a top ten in my third race seems like a pretty good start.”

White has also started racing on the track and has a long-term plan to become Bermuda’s first track cyclist at the Olympic Games.

“That’s a project I’ve got going and I have started riding track since coming over here,” he said.

“The plan is to start racing and the first targets are going to be the CAC Games and eventually the Commonwealth Games and Pan Am Games. Hopefully the long-term goal is the Olympics but I’ve got to start racing a lot before that can become realistic.”