The British cycling interest is at an all-time high and that is reflected in the constant growth of the country's pinnacle event, Tour of Britain. This year the race has attracted its strongest line-up ever, and they will be challenge by the hardest route ever seen for the 8-day race. Nairo Quintana and local hero Bradley Wiggins use the race as their final preparation for the world championships while Mark Cavendish leads a strong list of sprinters which includes riders like Elia Viviani, Gerald Ciolek and Sacha Modolo. You can follow the next few stages on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

For some riders, the Tour of Britain is mainly preparation for the world championships but for others it's an important event in its own right. Bradley Wiggins' main objective may be the world time trial championships but the Brit has done nothing to hide that he aims at the overall win in the biggest big race in his home country. He has done recons of the key stages that include a 16km time trial, the well-known, tough stage to Caerphilly and the first ever summit finish. Riders like Dan Martin, Nairo Quintana, Giovanni Visconti, Thomas Löfkvist, Stefano Pirazzi, Francesco Bongiorno, Lucas Euser, Philip Deignan and Sergio Pardilla make sure that he will face hard competition on the climbs while Alex Dowsett who beat him in the long Giro time trial, will challenge him in the race against the clock. And finally, there's great expectation for the Yates brothers who both did well at the recent Tour de l'Avenir and now face the world elite on home soil.

Like many other big national tours, this year's Tour of Britain will end in the capital of the country with a spectacular criterium along the Thames in London. A fast, non-technical 8,8km circuit that mostly runs along the shores of the famous river, will be completed 10 times and there are no climbs at all on the short 88,8km stage. A rather technical finale with two 90-degree corners inside the final 500m make positioning and acceleration important in the bunch sprint that seems to be the unavoidable conclusion to an excellent edition of Great Britian's major stage race.

Starting at 17.00 CEST you can follow the stage here.