Team Friday shred Gibson Street and the clock alike

There was no easing into this one. Team Friday came out of the blocks at time-trial pace and never let up, posting the fastest return leg of the whole Tour at 26 km/h — the kind of number that makes the team car (whoever’s driving it today) sit up and take notice.

The story of the day was written on Gibson Street. Iain, racing for Team Friday, took 22 seconds off his own best on the Gibson St Climb to stop the clock at 0:47 — a genuine personal best on the Tour’s one proper test of a hill. He wasn’t finished there either: the trimmed climb through the traffic lights fell in 0:39, 27 seconds quicker than before, and the short Half Climb followed with a personal best of its own at 0:17. Three PBs inside a single steep minute of road is the sort of return that gets talked about back at the team bus.

With the legs already flying and the wind now behind or across rather than in the face, Team Friday kept the pressure on all the way home. Short Benton went in 3:12, the second-best time Iain has ever managed there, backed up moments later by another second-best on the unnamed flat drag that follows. Gulls drifted overhead as the Tyne fell away behind him, but there was little time to notice; this was a ride run entirely on the stopwatch.

On the general classification, none of it changes the picture at the top — Team Friday were already there and this ride only tightens the grip, sitting first at 25.1 km/h across four legs. Team Wednesday remain closest in theory but well adrift in practice, with Team Tuesday, Team Monday and Team Thursday further back still. On a day like this, the rest of the Tour de Toon can only watch the numbers scroll past.