His first experience of France was not exactly a great memory. Sent to improve his cycling skills at VC La Pomme in Marseille, the Colorado rider had spent a year mostly wasting his time among hosts quite foreign to his personality and awkward sense of humour.

As his first Tour de France comes to an end , the Garmin-Sharp bespectacled intellectual - he started  the Pro Cyclist Book Club because he actually reads! - keeps an amused eye (behind nerd glasses) on the greatest cycling show on earth: 

"It's a crazy wild circus," he says, surprised less by the speed of it all than by the relentless pace of a race that "never stops for a second".

While he had his hard times - a crash in stage 7 or 9, he is not too sure - the man from Boulder insists he feels better in the dying week of the Tour than in the beginning.

"While I'm shrinking physically, I grew up emotionally", he said.

Like all his team-mates, Howes had to cope with the withdrawal of leader Andrew Talansky, forced out by two crashes:

"The most difficult thing was to switch roles. We all came on the Tour as domestiques, 100 pc dedicated to Andrew and we had to change our priorities and look for stage wins. It was not easy to adapt," he said.

Aware that "there are fewer chances" to shine as Paris moves closer, he promises to ride Saturday's time-trial "full gas to finish inside the timecut!"

"Obviously, when you're so close to finishing your first Tour it had to be a big priority", he said.