A few of the most daring riders in the peloton would have marked out Monday’s descent in their race handbooks as an opportunity to try and grab a few seconds, but it was also flagged as a dangerous obstacle between the riders and the safety of the finish line.

Indeed, in 2003 Joseba Beloki crashed heavily on this very same stretch of road, sustaining injuries that would effectively end his career as a top-level racer, and forcing Lance Armstrong, wearing the yellow jersey, to inadvertently take an off-road shortcut to avoid the stricken Spaniard, in what will forever be a key moment in Tour de France history.

It wasn’t surprising then that some of the riders on stage 16 found a few of the sharper bends tricky to navigate, with first Plaza, then Sagan wobbling and almost locking up their wheels on the same sharp right-hander. When the main bunch followed things were much more serious. With space on the road at a premium, French rider Barguil – henceforth to be known as Barge-guil – is seen to nudge Geraint Thomas just enough to send him flying off the road with only a telegraph pole to soften his fall into the trees below.

Many riders might have called it a day there, but not our G. Thomas picked himself out of the ditch, hopped back on his bike and started chasing down the pack. He came in at just 38 seconds down and with enough good grace to give a light-hearted interview to the press. He even joked later, “I haven’t been on the dodgems for a while!”