Cue the contingency plan, which meant walking the 3.7km from Oxenholme station to the finish up Beast Banks. The thing is, coming out of the station, a guy who I'd passed on the platform came surging past me. It was on.
I kept a couple of steps behind my breakaway partner on the downhill run at the start of the trip, but when that levelled out he seemed to kick on and I was struggling to keep up as the road climbed, and he took the first King of the Mountains points.. I considered keeping my pace steady and taking the Team Sky route of hoping to catch him later on, but combativity got the better of me, and I caught back up to him before the Leisure Centre, although I let him have that intermediate sprint.
As is so often the case, he eased off just after that and I swept past after he made a mess of the roundabout.
The dilemma at this point was do I risk letting him relay past again, or put my superior route knowledge to good use and attack him, potentially resulting in tiring before the end. Naturally, swashbuckling showman that I am, I wanted to attack. Egged on by my DS Andy, I went for it.
And he had no answer. On the flat run along the river I steadily increased the gap, and he fluffed the next big corner in the left-right over the river. As we straightened up towards the town centre, he was out of sight already, as this onboard camerawork shows.
At this point I honestly wasn't sure if he'd gone off the course or gone straight on into the pub, but I didn't feel comfortable easing off yet. Under the virtual flamme rouge my lead must have been pushing 30 seconds, before a left hander put me at the foot of Beast Banks. And bugger me, it's steep.
A few fans getting in the way aside, it was a
Beautiful success. Hugging the barrier to hold my line, there was even time to mug to the camera to celebrate my achievement, keeping the effort (and the effects of inclement weather) well hidden.
Or something. A quick retrospective of the parcours for the day.
46 minutes, said the official stage guide. The stopwatch at the end of the race said I'd done it in 37:46, smashing the course record and defying even the most optimistic schedule predictions. In fact, the organisers found it a bit suspicious.
Clean as a whistle. Eventually the stragglers, including Andy and Paul rolled in, just in time to see me presented with an actual winner's jersey by Tour of Britain MC Joe Fisher (@themanonthemic) after being asked about my thoughts on Bardiani-CSF. It happened. Ask him.
Oh yeah, Julien Vermote won the cycling.
