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I can’t tell you how difficult it is to react to changes of pace after 250 kilometers compared to 150 kilometers, which is closer to the distance of, say, your average Grand Tour sprinters’ stage. It’s like a different sport. I looked around, still flabbergasted that I wasn’t one of those hopping off the bus, and saw plenty of fast guys left in with me. Matteo Trentin, Fernando Gaviria, Michael Matthews, Alexander Kristoff, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Ben Swift . . . these were all genuine bunch gallopers. That wasn’t good. At this stage of a long, hard race, I’d be really desperate for a breakaway group to be caught as I’d expect to be one of the fastest left. But I couldn’t guarantee an edge over these guys at my best, let alone when I’d been crouched over the hotel toilet a few hours earlier. Sure, I felt surprisingly OK now, but I had zero idea what would happen when I tried to sprint.

I tested my legs by showing my face at the front of the bunch for the first time since the start line six hours ago. The conventional wisdom with cornering on a bike is that you brake first, cut across the apex, then accelerate out. Trial and error—quite a few errors—have taught me that if you take it wide, you don’t need to brake, you get a sort of slingshot effect and come out quicker than the others. With Ben Swift trying to close the gap to however many riders were up the road, I used the technique to get up to him and try to affect the chase. Instantly, I remembered what it was like to be Peter Sagan as the race rode up to my wheel . . . and stayed there. Didn’t they want to catch these guys? There were about 4 kilometers to go now. Five minutes left as world champion.