Stage three takes the riders in a south-north ‘U’ starting for e the second consecutive year in the old market town of Atherstone, and ending in the wide boulevards of Royal Leamington Spa.

Last year’s second stage left Atherstone for Stratford-upon-Avon, and ended in an elite group sprinting for the line; Amy Pieters, then riding for Wiggle-High5 took the win by a hair’s breadth from Lisa Brennauer and Marianne Vos on a miserable, wet day.

Woah that was close! #AvivaWT2016 pic.twitter.com/N2ppBxSNJP

— The Women's Tour (@thewomenstour) June 16, 2016

There are the standard two sprints, at Kenilworth and Wellesbourne in the first half of the stage, and then two second-category climbs in the latter part of the stage, at Edge Hill and Burton Dassett.

Again, it’s not like there are massive climbs, and the route profile just scrapes over 200 meters on a couple of occasions. However, it’s just an near-endless ascending and descending profile of sometimes sharp slopes, and dragging rollers that will leave the peloton thoroughly worn out.

Atherstone’s stage start lies near the fourteenth-century St Mary’s Church, and is surrounded by historic streets and buildings. George Eliot’s Middlemarch namechecks the Red Lion, while the Three Tuns (now called Bar 43) is where Henry Tudor stayed before the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

It’s here that the residents indulge themselves in an annual ‘ball game’ on Shrove Tuesday, so the place is used to conflict. Ideal as the Women’s Tour sets out to do battle on the roads nearby.

Royal Leamington Spa is a shoppers’ paradise, with department stores and independent boutiques, and broad expanses of parkland for rest and recovery. Just maybe the riders might get to relax in their surroundings if the sunshine comes.