Roads Rider of the Year: 4th - Dean Harrison

After another epic season of racing, MCN’s sports team of Michael Guy (Sports Editor), Simon Patterson (MotoGP Reporter) and Oli Rushby (Superbike Reporter) sat down to discuss who impressed them the most in each race series we cover to establish MCN’s top five riders in each category.

And with this year’s insanely close road racing season, it wasn’t an easy call to decide who deserved what spot in our top five riders of the year. Here’s what we think –  but feel free to disagree with us in the comments!

4^th – Dean Harrison  

It was another stellar year for Dean Harrison on the roads as he continued to concrete his position fighting at the sharp end with a flurry of international and national victories.

While he’d been strong in the Supersport and Superstock classes last year, Harrison upped the ante in the Superbike class at this year’s Isle of Man TT to finish third in both the Superbike and Blue Riband Senior TT despite racing with a Superstock-spec motor in his Kawasaki ZX-10RR after engine problems during practice.

The TT was almost just a warm-up for Harrison, who would go on to beat a dominant Michael Dunlop in the feature race at the Southern 100 as well as take two 600 wins. His domination at Scarborough would also continue in 2017.

Harrison added a further handful of rostrums to his tally at the Ulster Grand Prix before a stunning win to beat Tyco BMW’s Dan Kneen in a nail-biting Superbike finale. He also clocked up the Dundrod course’s outright lap record to become the ‘fastest road racer in the world’ with an average lap speed of 134.614mph. 

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