Team Thursday claims a Local Legend on the tired ride home

The story of the ride home was written on Coach lane - top bit, where Iain claimed a Local Legend despite the clock actually being eight seconds down on his last visit and 37 seconds off his best there. It sounds like a contradiction, but that is the beauty of a Local Legend: it rewards the sheer weight of effort put in across every attempt, not just the fastest one, and for a rider grinding out Team Thursday’s colours on tired legs, it was the one moment of the stage that felt like a genuine result rather than damage limitation.

Everything either side of that was honest, unglamorous work. The legs that had carried Iain out earlier in the day had nothing spare left for the drag back, and it showed in a ride that flattered nobody, true to the team’s reputation for grinding rather than gliding. A 25 km/h southerly wind sat behind him for most of the return, the sort of tailwind gift that should turn a leg into a formality, and it did at least keep the average speed respectable even as the effort in the legs clearly wasn’t there.

The route home took its usual late detour past the big Sainsbury’s and through to Coach Lane, dodging the Four Lane Ends junction altogether, before the cemetery and playing fields rolled by in the gathering quiet at the top of the hill.

In the general classification, none of it was enough to trouble the order at the top. Team Tuesday still leads the Tour, with Team Wednesday second and Team Thursday third, 46 seconds per 10 kilometres down. A Local Legend is a fine thing to carry home, but it does not move a team up a mountain of a gap like that - Iain and Team Thursday remain the Tour’s stubborn, unglamorous engine room, doing the work and collecting the small victories where they can find them.