Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men 2025 Stage 4

September 5, 2025 After three sprint finishes, the race finally gets a shake up with a day for the puncheurs. The 187KM stage starts in Atherstone on the outskirts of Birmingham and heads South through Cubbington for the intermediate sprint with 103KM to go. The profile is predominantly flat until 77KM from the finish when the riders reach the first of six categorized climbs, Friz Hill. It is only 1.2KM at 4% but it marks the beginning of the finale. Fant Hill comes 25KM later and is very similar in character to Friz Hill. Sun Rising Hill, 900M at 10%, comes 7KM before entering the local laps around Burton Dassett. The circuit begins 30KM before the finish and each lap contains the KOM atop Burton Dassett Hills. The climb is 900M at 7.3% with the finish on top on the third time around which will suit the puncheurs and classics style sprinters. A much sunnier day greeted the riders at the start for KM0 in Atherstone. A break of four was established relatively early that included Victor Vercouillie of Flanders Baloise, Rory Townsend of Q36.5, Cedric Beullens of Lotto, and Joshua Golliker of the British National team. Soudal Quickstep, Tudor Pro Cycling, and Picnic-PostNL set up the chase and kept the group under 4 minutes for most the day. Townsend won the intermediate sprint in Cubbington with Vercouillie taking the first KOM atop Friz Hill. Vercouillie took maximum points in Fant Hill as well as Sun Rising Hill but the peloton were closing in. On the first time up the climb in Burton Dassett, Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep attacked with Pavel Sivakov of UAE-XRG and Andrew August of Ineos on his wheel. Bauke Mollema of Lidl-Trek bridged up and the four caught the break away but Visma-Lease a Bike brought the whole race back together. There was less action on the second ascent but Norwegian National Champion, Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility, put in a move on the downhill. He was reeled in a few kilometers later and the stage win would be contested on the final time up the climb in Burton Dassett. Sam Watson of Ineos hit the front early and was leading from 600M all the way to 250M to go when Milan Vader of Q36.5 came over the top. They would both be swarmed however by a simultaneous attack of Julian Alaphilippe of Tudor Pro Cycling on the right and Romain Grégoire of Groupama-FDJ on the left. The dueling Frenchmen were side by side at 200M but Grégoire had the kick to take the win with Alaphilippe right behind in second. Edoardo Zambanini of Bahrain Victorious was third with a 2 second time gap being recorded between him and the first two riders. The 2 second gap would be crucial in the GC. Grégoire now owns the GC outright by 2 seconds on Matthew Brennan of Visma-Lease a Bike and 4 seconds to Alaphilippe with the big GC day coming tomorrow.