Despite two punctures, a loose bottom bracket and a chain which refused to stay on, John Kelley somehow made it to the finish. Luckily, he wasn’t racing.

The beaming 28-year-old was one of the thousands of fans and weekend riders who descended on Brighton for the Tour of Britain’s seventh stage.

Kelley, a Kiwi who had travelled all the way from Wellington, decided to ride a 40-year-old vintage steed from London for his first visit to Brighton.

Unsurprisingly, he found it difficult going on the sharp twists of Ditchling Beacon.

“It was pretty painful and I won’t be doing that again,” he joked, before heading off to refuel on seafront fish and chips. “To be honest I should have expected a few niggles - the bike is 40 years old, weighs a ton and has done more than 2,000 miles.”

He was one of more than an estimated 250,000 who turned out to catch a glimpse of top-level pro racers fighting it out over the toughest climbs the city and county has to offer.

Cycle nut Sophie Edmondson joined Kelley and hundreds of others on the route to ride the roads the a few hours before the riders passed through. After arriving to Madeira Drive, she bagged herself a Movistar cap from the team car parked past the finishing line, before grinning, “success!”

Families and fans milled around and walked up and down Madeira Drive all day picking up goodies and testing their power on a training bike set up in The Argus Appeal tent.

Everything from blow-up Festina batons to Ordinance Service keyrings and Sky protein yoghurts were doing the rounds.

Tom Bassam, 25, remembered watching as a child when the Tour De France visited in 1994 and explained how 20 years on his new-found love for cycling reflects the boom in the sport.

He cycles to work every day and had made his way to the finish on two wheels.

He said: “I remember watching the Tour De France come down Wilson Avenue and through Whitehawk which ten minutes from where I live. And when it goes right past your house that is something you don’t forget. Who can say Bradley Wiggins cycled past my house?”

Sir Bradley eventually emerged from the Team Sky bus once the day’s racing was done to to chants of “Wiggo, Wiggo, Wiggo” from an enormous crowd scrambling for selfies and autographs.

His old boss at Sky, Sussex cycling legend Sean Yates, lives in Uckfield.

Yates rode in the 1994 tour and is back in the sport as directeur sportif at new team NTFO.

Standing outside the back of the team bus Yates said he was over the moon to see competitive racing flying through his old haunts.

“We went through my home town of Uckfield where I now live and it was brilliant to see so many people out on the road - not only in Uckfield but all the way on the route.

“It’s been fantastic. The weather has helped and the racing has been good. Every day has been hard and long and fast.”

Jim Wallis is the man tasked with rubbing Yates’ riders down when the racing has finished.

He took The Argus on a sneaky peak on the NFTO team bus where a nutritionist was preparing the riders’ dinner. The boiling rice was to be added to a selection of bland-looking plastic boxes filled only with tuna.

A TV at the front of the bus - half the size of Sky’s but twice the size of Team Raleigh’s caravan - screened the racing. Clean but soaking lycra hung over a drying rack.

Wallis looked pretty happy for a man who confessed to being absolutely exhausted.

He’d spent the day put together the musettes filled with food to hand to the riders mid stage and was about to trundle over to the finishing line with protein bars, Coca Cola and cleaning wipes as soon as the riders arrive, before giving weary muscles an hour’s massage.

“Being part of a new pro team is tiring but it’s nice to be around the big teams the be involved in the post race buzz. I teach sports massage at a college in Hereford, where the team is based, so it’s a pretty good hobby job really.”

It’s a tiny team and chef Annie Simpson is studying for an MA in sports nutrition in Leeds.

“The tour is fun and we’ve got a great team. I ride as well as I know what they’ve been through. When the riders come back to the bus they want to keep themselves to themselves so we clear out and make sure everything is ready for them and throw in a few treats.

As with everyone involved with the race, she was amazed by the crowds.

“They’ve been incredible, but the for the best thing about having big races on British roads is that once the tour has been through you see all the names painted on the road - it’s certainly gives you a helping hand on your training rides.”

Back over at the finish line, next to hospitality, the lines of trucks and cameras and railings, baying fans rumbled and prepared for train-like peloton by banging on the boards.

“You could hear it growing and growing as the cyclists got closer and when the winner came across it was like, wow there he is,” said James Drew, 14, from Seaford.

“Then the next group came along and we saw Wiggo and Cav so close. It was over fast but with all the anticipation it was great.”

The face of ITV’s cycling coverage, anchor Ned Boulting, agreed.

“It’s been a great days racing in Sussex and Brighton - spectacular and competitive,” he told The Argus before he delivered his lines to camera. “It’s an ideal place for riding. There were varied roads, rolling hills and great crowds as well.”