PETE Williams has his eyes on a home victory in the first Science Fitness Skipton Cycle Races tonight.

The 28-year-old Embsay rider is bang in form after winning the Ilkley Town Centre Grand Prix last Wednesday.

Williams said: “Skipton will be my home town race. It is going to be great racing down the High Street. I think the spectators will be in for a treat.

“The riders will be touching speeds of 30mph down there and it should make a great spectacle for the spectators who come along to watch.

“I think it will be a great atmosphere, just like it was in Ilkley last week and that is great when you are riding.”

Williams can expect tough competition from his good friend Scott Thwaites. He was fifth in Sunday’s National Road Race Championships, finishing behind four men who will be riding in the Tour de France which starts on Saturday.

And the 25-year-old is another rider with good reason for wanting to win the first Skipton race.

The 2014 Commonwealth Games road race bronze medal winner said: “I was a student at Ermysted’s Grammar School for five years and there will be some of my old school friends in the crowd.”

Thwaites, who rides for the Germany-based BORA-Argon 18 team, added: “Cycling is now a very popular sport and the people who come to watch are knowledgeable about the tactics.

“It can only be good for the area to have as many of these Town Centre races as possible.

“For people like myself and Pete Williams with connections to the area, and riders like Tom and Joe Moses from Keighley, it is great to be able to race close to home.”

The quartet, who regularly train together on the North Yorkshire Moors, were all due to be in action at Otley last night, where Thwaites was bidding for his third win.

Williams, who was a non finisher in the National Road Race Championships at Lincoln, will also bidding for a personal hat-trick tonight, having won the Town Centre races in Pontefract and Ilkley this year.

The 28-year-old One Pro rider is enjoying a fine season. He won the first stage of the five-day Baltyk Karkonosze Tour in Poland last month.

“I held on to the yellow jersey until the final time trial in the mountains,” said Williams, who finished third overall.

The elite men’s race gets under way at 8pm, but before that there is an opportunity for under-12s to ride the course from 6pm before the youth race at 7pm.