Team Friday clock a personal worst, still can't stop winning

For the official record, the panel notes that Iain, racing for Team Friday, covered the morning leg out in 19 minutes 49 seconds, an average of 24.5 km/h, dry underfoot with a westerly breeze of 17 km/h across the road. The panel further notes, without prejudice, that this stands as Team Friday’s slowest ride out of the three recorded this Tour — a fact to be entered in the minutes, not treated as scandal.

The stage’s defining passage came early, on Benton and Chilly Road, where the clock read 7 minutes 25 seconds, 48 seconds down on the previous attempt and a full 86 seconds off the best time set on that stretch. The panel considers this the pivotal segment of the ride: lose ground here, on the long false-flat run past Four Lane Ends, and the rest of the leg is spent managing the deficit rather than attacking it. So it proved.

Elsewhere the deficits were smaller and more forgivable — a few seconds shed here, a personal effort clawed back there — but the early damage on Chilly Road set the tone the rest of the ride could not fully undo. The panel notes the traffic conditions typical of that corridor, buses easing from their stops, doors opening without warning, coffee drifting from the cafés along Chillingham Road, and records these as mitigating rather than exceptional circumstances.

The general classification is unaffected by today’s proceedings. Team Friday remain at the head of affairs, 96 seconds per 10 km clear of Team Wednesday, extending an unbroken run at the summit stretching back 23 stages to week one. The panel wishes it noted, for the avoidance of doubt, that a slow ride from the leaders is still a fast ride by the Tour’s standards, and that Team Friday’s grip on yellow, while tested today, was never seriously threatened.