On his mark: He is ready for the Tour of Britain but Mark Stewart has long-term track ambitions. 
On Friday Mark Stewart pedalled out of Glasgow, heading north for the Campsies, climbing the Crow Road, then doing a loop around the Carron Valley. “It was nice to be back on home roads,” he says, “but it was fresh. Arm and leg warmers weather.” It was the first longish ride he’d done since finishing the Tour de l’Avenir, the nine-day race in France known as the “Tour of the Future,” and his last before the OVO Energy Tour of Britain, which rolls out from the Royal Mile in Edinburgh this morning.

Stewart, who turned 22 during the Tour de l’Avenir, will be riding the national tour this week for his professional team, the Irish-registered, Belgium-based An Post-Chain Reaction. And he has a dream for stage one, which takes the riders into East Lothian then heads into the Borders, with a circuit that will take them through Kelso once before the finish in the town. “I’ll look to get into the break on the first day and hope that my legs will be on the same wavelength as my head.”