Premier Primoz!
The Rog takes Red on a narrow uphill finish after a day in the hills of the Basque Country. Unlike an all-out sprint on the flat, there was a bit of slow-motion “excuse me, old fellow” and “do you mind, Sir” in the very confined road up to the finish line. There were glimmers of past glories in the last couple of kilometres with first Nibali and then Valverde prominent, but the Jumbo man jumped them all to win the stage. Jumbo-Visma continue to play pass-the-jersey, but it does look like the music has stopped at the 3 time winner, at least for a while.
I wonder if one team has ever before managed to get 4 different riders in a GC leader’s jersey on the 4 first consecutive days of a stage race? They are remarkable, but also don’t let’s lose sight of Skineos who have 5 riders in the first 8 places on GC.
Team of the Day
And the Thinfatboys arrived on the scene with all the power of Roglic in his pomp. David’s team was one of seven recording the stage win, but also notched up Mads Pederson in 2nd, white-jerseyed Ethan Hayter in 7th and Wilco Kelderman in 9th! Chapeau. Here are the stars of Stage 4:
And shout out to Linda whose Cuchara de Madera aqui now top the mini-league. The velopoints are accumulating:
errata
I made a false assumption when I saw DS “Paul” for team Velo Espana – apologies to Mr Williams for misattributing your team to Mr Martin – there always was too high a Paul density in that office! Sadly Paul M missed the deadline, and declined my invitation to enter a team in retrospect (I could easily integrate a pretend team into my stats for the whole race) with all the opportunity for cheating and reaping ill-gotten gains now passed up.
When in Vitoria-Gasteiz …
… I would like to visit Errekaleor Bizirik, which is an alternative community living in abandoned buildings since 2013. It is famous for murals, like the one below, painted on 32 of the apartment blocks. The hundred and fifty residents have become an independent self-managed community who have withstood attempts to evict and criminalise them. In 2017 the electricity was cut off, so they “installed a sustainable and independent electric grid, installing bicycle electricity generators and solar panels, as well as remodelling the communal showers and washing facilities to function without electricity” and successfully crowd-funded solar panels. Bicycle Power To The People!
