Two young men ran beside Froome, each with a "toy" giant syringe filled with an unknown substance. One got close, pressed the plunger and sprayed the substance directly into his face. The leader instinctively struck out with his right arm and punched the guy in the face, an act of physical violence utterly at odds with his character. "Some of the stuff went into my mouth, it might have been beer but I was conscious of not wanting to swallow even a drop and just kept spitting out. I was thinking, 'What if there's some product in that stuff'."
The ascents of Alpe d'Huez scared him. "Once there were riots in Kenya and my mum and I got stopped going through a particularly dangerous township. The protesters rocked our car, we didn't know what was going to happen. Alpe d'Huez reminded me of that day."
Farrell met some Irish fans the next morning in Bourg d'Oisans and told his compatriots how disappointed he'd been by the reaction to Froome and Sky. "Our team is doing this sport in the right way," he said, "and that's what we get from you guys." There were tears in his eyes as he spoke.
A little later, four cyclists from Lakeside Cycling Club in Mullingar found Brailsford and told him they were sorry. A Dutch journalist told me he was shamed by the behaviour of his compatriots.
Through it all, Froome has been a beacon of calmness. When Portal suggested appealing against Froome's 20-second penalty for taking that feed on Alpe d'Huez, the leader advised him not to. "Nico, if I hadn't got the gels at that point, I could have lost two minutes. Twenty seconds is OK." This has been a terrific Tour de France and it has delivered a great new champion, one who started out in Kenya's Ngong hills and learnt to love the bike while riding with a group of black friends. It was his good fortune to enter the sport when anti-doping controls were becoming more effective and attitudes changing. As for the mob reaction on Thursday, it was a reminder of how Lance Armstrong was regarded. Once he was the most loved sportsman on the planet. Partly because of that betrayal, the mob was baying for Froome's blood on the Alpe. They were wrong when Armstrong was winning. And they are wrong now about Froome.