Stage 1 was very, very wet! Really quite hazardous at times, with nerve wracking wobbles for some and a fall or two for others. The speed other riders achieved later in the day as the road dried was quite astonishing.

I wanted to share something of my process today as the beauty of an individual time trial, for me, is that you can really see the technique of each rider and their position on the bike.

I began with line drawings on larger paper, just one after the other while the riders made their way round. Not worrying about who was who really, just getting the attitude and position on the bike where I could. These scribbly, fast studies get my hand to move a bit faster!

The next step is colour, again, practising at this point, nothing finished really and one rider merges with another, so you get a bit of Roglic, with a bit of Bardet or whoever, it’s about movement and flow really. These began with watercolour with pen and ink but I worked over them with pastel to bring the colour out. There’s pastel dust all over the place now, so I need to sweep up before Stage 2!