Over halfway through the race, and the cumulative kilometres will have a lot of the riders in trouble … and it only gets harder in the final two stages.

Stage 4 this year covers 130 kilometres from Evesham to Worcester. The main difficulty is the first-category climb of Snowshill on the northern fringes of the Cotswolds; this might be the launchpad for an escape, but it is probably too far from the finish for any overall contenders to take such a risk.

What might happen, though, is that teams like Boels-Dolmans, Wiggle-High5 and Canyon-SRAM might fire someone up the road to help their team leaders later on. It will be tough for Sunweb to decide what tactic to employ – defend everything and risk burning themselves out? Let an early break go and anticipate that the other teams will chase?

Even more complexity is added by the fact that the first intermediate sprint comes right at the bottom of the first QOM … should they control the race as far as that for Rivera to try and gain more bonus seconds, or hope that riders way down the classification break clear early on?

If that scenario happens, it would be a safe bet that WNT’s Winanda Spoor will be involved, a brave rider never shy of a long escape.

The third-category climb of Atch Lench comes just after half-distance, with the second intermediate sprint at Inkberrow following on (92kms). The remainder of the route is up-and-down, short nasty uncategorised climbs and a lot of pain. Expect a Classics-type rider to come out on top … why not the world champion Chantal Blaak?

https://twitter.com/ChantalBlaak/status/1007888769486385152