He wore a bulbous red helmet with a Royal AirForce roundel sticker and he buried himself, ripping time away from competitors like Germany's Tony Martin, Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, and his own Team GB colleague, Chris Froome.
Mr. Appleton was a qualified stunt pilot whose many planes included a bright red Hawker Hunter fighter jet he bought from the Republic of Singapore AirForce in the 1990s.