Sprints and Cakes
Flat transition stage. Not exactly a la crepe, but everyone though it would be a sprint into Saint-Étienne. Breakaway … sit up … trundle trundle trundle … chase … catch … sprint. In the words of Villanelle, “BOOOOORING!” Well that was on my mind this morning when suddenly … [see Postcard of the Day] … I am easily distracted on a flat stage. Which means comfort eating. I have been listening out for Jonathan … err … Thingey – y’know the guy on the GCN commentary who pops up to read out the Wikipedia entry for every chateau and hydro-electric plant in France – well HIM – he is doing daily recipes, but hasn’t yet included anything for the annual glut of courgettes. Any ideas? We have got the courgetti-spaghetti machine out for this evening, and Linda has baked another of those courgette and lemon cakes: do you remember when, pre-plague, we used to share cakes by the printer? I timed how long the courgette and lemon cake took to be entirely eaten, and it was 14 minutes. Even Reidy “only if it’s chocolate” liked it! [Recipe available on request.]
Back to the Racing
Are they nearly there yet…? Will they chase? Won’t they chase? Oops Caleb’s fallen off and Fabio’s been dropped. Now there’s a cross-headwind and splits in the peloton. Who said this was boring? Why are they riding so fast? They did 3 Hautes-Category climbs yesterday so how can they ride so fast?! The roads are melting, the riders are melting, the breakaway’s hopes are melting, but up front there’s Filippo Ganna and Stefan Küng driving the seven escapees like one of those historic double-header Garrett steam trains.
12 km to go and the chase gives up; Pederson makes a break for home, taking Fred Wright and Hugo Houle (“Sean, don’t pronounce the Hs!”). I’m cheering for the two big time-triallers behind, but with 3 km to the finish, it’s Wright Said Fred time, and then he‘s chased down. The three wait and wait and wait and … 250 m to … GO! andMadsPedersonwinsthesprint. Of course he did! That’s 3 of the last 4 stages won by Danish riders. Londoner Fred was second – the 3rd British rider on the podium in 2 days. “Chapeau!” to the stay-away breakaway.
Team of the Day
Only one GWR minileague team includes the Stage 13 vanquer: Piles non comprises. This is the fourth stage they have come tops, this one with 767 velopoints (second only to Le Tour for sure‘s 863 on Stage 7): Mads Pedersen 1st, Stefan Küng 4th, Matteo Jorgenson 5th and, fighting for scraps at the head of a peloton some 5 minutes later, Wout Van Aert 7th.
Stat du Jour
We haven’t seen how the Top Ten Chart looks for a bit, so here we are. Piles non comprises now shares 11 top 3 finishers with David’s Thin Fat Boys, but Mike’s team sit in 4th after the podium of David, Martin and Philippa.
Postcard from the Loire
vendredi 15 juillet Saint-Étienne
Handy phrase in the local Occitan: “E ben, monsur, sètz saget?” [All right, mate? Everything OK?]
Magic Realism and Inverse Velogames
This morning I was Dyson-ing the Dyson (c’mon, it’s the dustiest thing in the house!) when I blanked out just before being sucked into the self-consuming singularity and woke up in a parallel universe in which I had taken DS Paul M’s challenge (or was it Matt’s? I lost your e-mails in the wormhole) which was to construct a velo team costing 100 (no fewer) which would score the minimum points. I tried it a few days ago and started by choosing riders who had already gone home (which felt like cheating) but then came up with: Vlasov, Mas, Martinez, Haig, Ewan, Mohoric, Wellens, Leknessund and Van der Poel. Spending exactly 100 is the tricky bit. Collectively they just scraped 1000 points after Stage 9. How low can you go? [Answers on a postcard etc. etc.]
Côtes du Rhône is the most reliable wine in France
Jonathan Wots-his-name off GCN