Stage 4 - When control turns to chaos

Stage 4 of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women was another long and deceptively hard day: 138 kilometres and around 2,200 metres of climbing, the most elevation gain we've seen so far.

There were three categorised climbs, but they only told part of the story. The entire stage was relentlessly up and down, with plenty of uncategorised climbing adding to the fatigue. From around 15 kilometres to go, though, the road predominantly headed downhill before a relatively straightforward, flat run to the finish.

On paper, that might sound like a day for the sprinters.

In reality, almost everything unravelled before we got there.

Fleur Moors puts the leader's team under pressure

One of the rides of the day came very early from Fleur Moors.

Wearing the white jersey as leader of the young rider classification, Fleur attacked early — and unfortunately for her, nobody initially followed.

Going solo so far from the finish is always a huge commitment, particularly on a stage with this much climbing. But Fleur looked incredibly strong.

At one point her advantage grew to around two minutes, putting her into the virtual race lead.

And that's when AG Insurance-Soudal had to respond.

Yesterday, Kim Le Court-Pienaar took the leader's jersey. Today, the team's role changed completely.

When you're leading a stage race, there's a certain responsibility that comes with it. You can't simply allow a dangerous rider to disappear up the road and hope another team will solve the problem.

So AG Insurance-Soudal came to the front as a team and began controlling the gap.

It was exactly what I expected to see.

There's a very clear mentality within this team: Kim came here as the leader, she's now wearing the leader's jersey, and everyone commits to protecting it.

The interesting question was how long they could maintain that control on such a demanding course.

We've already seen that when these stages become really selective, Kim often finds herself deep into the final with Letizia Borghesi as her last teammate. Today would test that again.

Reinforcements finally arrive

After spending so long alone, Fleur finally gained some company.

Alessia Vigilia of Uno-X Mobility and Dilyxine Miermont of Picnic PostNL managed to bridge across, suddenly giving the breakaway a little more credibility.

Three riders working together is an entirely different proposition from one rider fighting the peloton alone.

For a moment, it looked like the move might have a chance.

Then FDJ-SUEZ came to the front.

And this is where the race became interesting tactically.

It wasn't FDJ's responsibility to chase the breakaway. In fact, by driving the peloton, they were essentially helping AG Insurance-Soudal bring Fleur and the others back.

But they had their own objective.

Lauren Dickson was leading the QOM classification, and FDJ clearly wanted to secure it.

Ally Wollaston committed completely to making the race hard. For a rider we normally think of as a sprinter, she did an enormous amount of work on the climbs and caused some serious damage behind.

The peloton began splitting.

Letizia Borghesi was distanced.

And suddenly Kim was alone.

And then everything changed

Just as FDJ had done all that work, the race was turned upside down by a crash.

Kate Courtney stood up to accelerate as Ally finished her effort, and Lauren Dickson, directly behind, appeared to touch wheels and went down.

Several riders were caught up or affected by the incident, including Mischa Bredewold and Karlijn Swinkels, while Kim was delayed behind it but managed to negotiate her way around relatively quickly.

Within seconds, the controlled race we'd been watching became chaos.

Groups everywhere. Teammates separated. GC riders caught on different sides of the split.

And Kim was now isolated.

This was probably the most vulnerable moment we've seen for the race leader so far.

Movistar make their move

Movistar immediately recognised the opportunity.

They'd already shown yesterday how committed they are to Liane Lippert, and once again they began making the race hard.

Then Liane attacked.

Kim's response was excellent.

She immediately got onto Liane's wheel — and importantly, she didn't contribute unnecessarily.

That's exactly how a race leader should respond in that situation. Liane needed to take time. Kim simply needed to prevent her from doing so.

But there was another factor influencing what happened next.

The motorbikes.

The uncomfortable influence of the motos

Motorbikes are essential to professional cycling.

They provide television pictures, support race safety and allow us to experience the sport in a way that simply wouldn't be possible otherwise.

But their positioning can also influence a race.

And today, to me, that influence was noticeable.

With Liane driving and Kim sitting on her wheel, the motorbikes ahead appeared close enough to provide a meaningful aerodynamic benefit.

Essentially, the two riders at the front were receiving a degree of motor pacing.

That's unfortunate, because while those riders benefit from reduced aerodynamic resistance, the riders chasing behind don't necessarily have the same advantage.

SD Worx-Protime therefore had to work incredibly hard to close the gap.

And, to her enormous credit, Lorena Wiebes did.

On the final QOM climb, Lorena managed to bridge across to the front.

After everything the race had already thrown at her, the world's best sprinter was still there.

A very unusual front group

Eventually we had a small and incredibly strong group at the front containing many of the key GC riders.

Kim was there. Liane was there. Lorena was there. Shirin van Anrooij was there. So too were riders including Caroline Andersson, Femke de Vries and Katrine Aalerud.

What happened next was fascinating.

Kim was isolated and wearing the leader's jersey.

Normally, that's exactly when rival teams try to make your life miserable.

Attack her. Make her chase. Attack again.

Instead, the group largely cooperated.

To me, that said a lot about how difficult the stage had been.

Everyone was tired.

There weren't many teams with numbers available to play tactically, and several riders had GC positions of their own worth protecting. Rather than sacrificing what they already had by playing games, there was a willingness to keep the group moving.

That worked perfectly for Kim.

A missed tactical opportunity?

A chasing group eventually made contact, bringing Karlijn Swinkels and Erica Magnaldi back into contention for UAE Team L'IMAD.

And suddenly UAE had something almost nobody else had.

Two riders.

In a small group full of isolated GC contenders, that's an incredibly valuable tactical advantage.

This was perhaps the one moment where I expected something different.

Rather than immediately setting a hard tempo with Erica, UAE potentially had the opportunity to pause and use their numerical advantage more aggressively — forcing others to react before launching Karlijn.

Instead, Erica went straight to the front and drove the pace, with Karlijn subsequently trying to attack from behind.

For me, that made their move easier to control than it perhaps needed to be.

There were a few more attempts from riders in the closing kilometres, but by then the terrain was increasingly favouring the group.

Everything came back together for the sprint.

And we all know what that usually means.

Lorena Wiebes — without a lead-out, after 2,200 metres of climbing

What Lorena did today deserves a lot of credit.

This wasn't a straightforward sprint stage where SD Worx-Protime delivered her perfectly to 200 metres to go.

She had survived a relentlessly hard race.

She had been forced to bridge across to the front herself.

She didn't have her usual lead-out.

And she still won.

That's what separates an exceptional sprinter from simply a fast rider.

Liane Lippert produced another very strong performance to finish second, while Kim took third — another important result for the GC.

Most importantly for AG Insurance-Soudal, Kim keeps the leader's jersey.

One day to go

The gaps have tightened slightly through the finish-line bonus seconds, but the equation heading into the final stage is relatively clear.

Neither Liane nor Lorena can simply rely on the available bonus seconds to overhaul Kim.

If someone wants to take this race away from her, they're going to have to create separation on the road.

And that creates a fascinating final stage.

AG Insurance-Soudal showed today that they're fully committed to defending Kim's jersey. They controlled when they needed to, and when circumstances eventually pulled the race apart and Kim found herself isolated, she showed that she had the strength and racing intelligence to handle it.

Tomorrow, they'll have to do it one more time.

Other teams now have very little reason to be conservative. Movistar have shown their ambition. SD Worx-Protime still have multiple cards. And after four demanding days, fatigue can make a race far less predictable than the profile suggests.

But Kim looked strong today.

She survived the chaos, covered the important moves and still sprinted to third.

One stage remains.

And now everyone else has to find a way to take the green jersey from her.

— Ashleigh