The race comprised four long stages and eight shorter ones. Chris Birchall opened for Leeds on a long stage and finished sixth in a highly-competitive stage where Bingley's Matthew Watson finished fourth.

Veteran Martin Roscoe swept Leeds into an 11-second lead on the second stage while junior James Wilkinson lost just one place (to former Olympic runner Curtis Robb) to Liverpool on stage three.

Stage four, another long one, saw Leeds in front again by virtue of a fine effort from Alan Buckley making his first championship appearance for Leeds.

The former Gateshead international has lived or worked in Leeds for 10 years dating from his student days at Leeds University and has decided to throw in his lot with the Leeds club. His lead was over a minute and he was followed for Leeds by Martin Hilton, Arthur Cooke so that at the half way stage Leeds were well clear.

From then it was a procession. Simon Deakin on a long stage, Tim Crossland and Mike Burrett kept the Leeds colours to the front before James Walsh put the result beyond doubt with a quality run on stage 10, a long one. This left Adam Osborne and Darran Bilton an easy task to bring the team home well clear of Liverpool with Sale third.

Bingley, with their best performance for some time, finished fourth whilst Leeds City were first B team in 12th place.

Chester le Street retained their women's title but there was a splendid performance from Wakefield to take silver medals. Junior Katie McHale put them in 10th place on stage one but they were down to 20th at the next takeover through Shirley Griffiths, returning after a lay-off. A storming run from Charlene Thomas, who clocked 16:15 to move up to fifth, paved the way for Wakefield's medals before Helen Singleton and Julie Briscoe did the rest.

Even faster than Thomas was Hatti Dean who took Hallamshire from 13th to second on stage three with the fastest time of the day, 16:07.