Team Tuesday shreds Gibson Street twice, keeps grip on yellow

Forget the flat roads today — this stage belonged to a hill. Iain, racing for Team Tuesday, smashed his personal best on Gibson Street by a scarcely believable 59 seconds, stopping the clock at 0:47, then went again moments later on the trimmed version of the same climb and beat that best too, taking 24 seconds off to clock 0:42. Two personal bests on the same slope inside a minute of each other — the kind of climbing that makes a directeur sportif drop a clipboard.

There was more where that came from. On the short, brutal Gibson St Half Climb, Iain rattled off the third best time he has ever recorded, just a single second shy of his all-time mark. Three results, one hill, and suddenly the climb that is supposed to be over in less than a minute and felt for ten was the making of the entire ride home.

It wasn’t all triumph. Team Tuesday were sluggish out of the blocks, posting their slowest ever run at On The Front, more than a fifth slower than their best there, and later toiled up towards the top of Coach Lane in the slowest of six attempts on that stretch. A strong, dry westerly at 28 km/h sat behind or across the rider for most of the leg, which makes those flat-road struggles all the more puzzling — the tailwind should have helped, not hindered.

Along the way, the tyre note changed as ever crossing Byker Bridge, and Shields Road did its usual trick of feeling like a climb on the way home that had felt like nothing at all on the way out.

None of it mattered by the finish. Team Tuesday sit top of the general classification, averaging 22.95 km/h across two legs, comfortably clear of Team Monday who trail by 75 seconds per 10 km. On the strength of that Gibson Street double, the yellow jersey stays exactly where it was — on The Metronomes’ shoulders.