British lawyer, 40, who beat Tadej Pogacar fuelled by McDonald’s

“People were maybe a bit surprised when I came up and he wasn’t there,” Feather tells The Times. “There was an element of thinking — ‘this is not about me, it’s about him’. I’m not really sure why. It was a mixed feeling at the top.

“There was also an element of when I look back at it, it would be nice for him to have caught me. Just to really see how quick he was and to try to stay on his wheel and see how far I could go on his wheel. Obviously that didn’t happen. I didn’t have the opportunity.”

Pogacar reached the finish line about three minutes after Feather at an event designed so that Pogacar could catch everyone. The riders set out in a bunch and rolled along for about 10km before the hill climb timing started. Feather believes they calculated that head start on the best amateur riding the climb at 5.5w/kg — they hadn’t anticipated someone riding a little more.

“It is initially pretty steep and I just went at my own pace and rode to a consistent 400 watts [6.2 w/kg],” Feather says. “I quickly managed to drop everyone and I was on my own. I just rode all the way. I was just thinking towards the end that at some point he’s going to come. It just depends on how much of a head start he’s given us. It’s funny because everyone’s like, why did he give us such a head start?”

Feather managed the climb in 44min 15sec while Pogacar did it in 40min 44sec — 3 ½ minutes quicker, but not enough to catch the featherweight lawyer. But while the plan was to catch everyone, Pogacar was gracious in “defeat”.

“I didn’t realise they were doing this prize ceremony, but they called the top three men and the top three women through to this big stage and we waited for the prize presentation,” Feather says. “Pogacar’s parents were there. It was a really local family event. It was really nice.

“When we got on the stage, Pogacar came up and shook my hand and said, ‘That was really, really fast. Well done’. He also mentioned me when he was speaking in front of all the people, he said: ‘I didn’t anticipate there was going to be one rider who would escape’ and he said, ‘chapeau’, which is nice. It’s just funny thinking perhaps the greatest cyclist of all time knows my name now.”

“I tried to catch everyone, but I couldn’t,” said Pogacar on the Tour 202 podcast. “Hats off to the winner . . . [UAE Team Emirates XRG] is already full. But if someone can climb that fast, you can always use them. Maybe he never wanted to be a pro. Everyone has their own path.”

Feather is a four-times national hill climb champion. While his first love was cricket, playing for the first team at Exeter University, he always cycled for fitness. Then in his late 20s he started road racing, realising that he liked the hard-climbing efforts in particular. But he felt it was too late to follow the path of a professional cyclist and anyway that wasn’t a lifestyle that appealed to him, whereas the popular hill climb circuit suited him perfectly.

“Maybe if I had my time again, it would be nice to do it as a youngster for a few years and see how you do,” Feather says. “I came into it too late. I don’t have any regrets because I’ve been really fortunate in having a nice, stable job, but still following a hobby and doing it to really high standards.

“I know the world of professional cycling is pretty tough. You have to be absolutely the best to make a living out of it. You get so many cyclists on the breadline all the time. If you’re not in that top tier, it’s pretty difficult. It’s an insecure place to be.”

For Feather, being in shape for the September and October hill climb season is always the goal, after which he can put on seven to eight kilograms. Those hard, short efforts require a good power-to-weight ratio and no thought about nutrition and all that comes with riding a 180km road stage. His next goal, on October 26, is the final hill climb of the year on the 834m Bank Road in Matlock, where he hopes to take his fifth national title. Although he knows a two-minute effort in the Peak District is very different to a 13.9km climb in Slovenia.

The decision to go to Slovenia, then, was a last-minute one. He spotted an advertisement on Instagram and while the timing wasn’t ideal (two weeks before the key event of his own season) he thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He told GCN (the Global Cycling Network YouTube channel) about his plan and they came out to film the whole thing, which can be watched online from this weekend.

“It was very short,” Feather says. “I arrived in Slovenia late on Friday night and then I was back home on Sunday evening. I didn’t have a pump out there so my tyres were very flat when I did the event. Preparation wasn’t ideal, getting in very late, having a McDonald’s the night before, not having enough air in my tyres. I suppose that comes part and parcel of being an amateur rider and not having the team looking after you.

“The one thing that does stand out for me from the event is that Pogacar just seems like a humble, genuine, nice guy. He was just not wanting to take the limelight and was very grateful to everyone who attended the event. They raised a lot of money for the charity. It was a really worthwhile cause.”

And so Feather, a man with a full-time job and a family in Bath, has become one of only a handful of riders to finish ahead of Pogacar on his own terrain this season, alongside the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Wout Van Aert. He took away a 6kg bottle of champagne — which a friendly Slovenian put in his suitcase at the airport to transport home to Gatwick — a watch and a trophy.

Does he have any tips for the others on beating Pogacar? “I’d say request a head start,” he replies.

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