Team Wednesday punches straight through the wind for six PBs

Team Wednesday came to race, and Iain proved it in the most contrary way possible: six personal bests set into a 28 km/h westerly that should have flattened any ambition of speed. The Puncheurs’ whole philosophy is short, sharp efforts followed by regret, and today the regret never quite arrived — the legs kept firing, segment after segment, all the way from Glasshouse to Albion Row through to The Gamble near the finish.

The headline effort was Canny taily!, smashed in 2:10 for a personal best, a segment long enough to punish anyone riding into that kind of wind and short enough to reward exactly the kind of stubborn, puncheur-style effort Team Wednesday specialises in. Add to that best-ever marks on Glasshouse to Albion Row Sprint, mmmm toffee, final blast, Field House to Seat and The Gamble, and you have a rider who simply refused to let the westerly dictate terms.

There was colour too: the change in tyre noise as the bridge came and went, gulls working the river regardless of what the wind was doing to everyone else, and a Quayside doing its usual thing underfoot while the breeze did its worst overhead. Nothing sheltered him there, as nothing ever does, but he came off it still finding form rather than losing it.

On the general classification, 26.2 km/h into that kind of wind does rather more than make a point: it takes Team Wednesday straight to the top of the Tour on their opening leg, leaving Team Tuesday’s 22.95 km/h across two rides a distant 195 seconds per 10 km back. A lead built on one stage is the thinnest kind there is, but six personal bests in a single ride is the sort of form line that has directeurs sportifs elsewhere checking their notes. The Puncheurs came, they climbed, and for once the regret stayed away.