As I finished off the final forty miles of this stage riding into Pau there were so few people along the road I wondered if I had the day wrong and the stage wasn’t until the next day. Part of the reason for so few people was that most of The Tour followers in their campers had stayed over in the Pyrenees, selecting s choice spot for the next stage in the high mountains rather than coming over to the relatively flat, though rolling, terrain of this stage. They were missing out on some fine scenery, but that can pretty much be said of all of France. There are no boring Plains here. Rivers lace the entire country. A forest is always nearby.
Riding the marked route when there is little traffic I sometimes get so lost letting the arrows lead the way I have to be careful not to take a hard left at a roundabout as the arrows point, rather than going around the roundabout before making the turn. When I first came to France and had a strong bicycle messenger mentality taking any short cut I could, I would pull that trick avoiding the long way around. That was before I knew how quick cars can come out of nowhere in France and learned it was best to abide to full roundabout etiquette. I always have to adjust my reflexes when I return to France, as drivers like to accelerate super fast here. They don’t necessarily speed, but they do get up to speed fast.
With the French propensity for quick acceleration it is a wonder they haven’t produced a dominant sprinter. They can imagine they have one in Arnaud Démare, who won today’s sprint, but only because the top sprinters have all been eliminated from The Race and Sagan was so battered from a bad crash yesterday he could only finish eighth, one spot ahead of the American Taylor Phinney, whose father Davis won a few Tour sprints and who was so dominant in the US, winning sprints at will, his nickname was Cash Register. Démare was so excited and relieved to win, it didn’t seem to matter to him he beat a diluted field. The biggest cloud hanging over him was the tweet from Andre Greipel, one of the alpha dogs who bowed out in the Alps unable to beat the time cut, that it was highly unlikely he only lost nine minutes on the final climb the day before, implying he’d gotten a tow from a team car. Démare took great offense to that, and Greipel apologized. Lance on his podcast highly applauded Griepel for raising the issue.
I arrived at the Giant Screen before one. Vittel was handing out two water bottles to anyone who wanted them. Before I could grab one a guy next to me handed me one of his. The Screen faced a large field with no shade. The stage hadn’t even begun yet, so there was absolutely no reason to hang out except to let a guy who had been living in Seattle for the past thirty years with his American wife talk my ears off. He’d been at the finish line since 9:30 just to be part of the scene. He could remember the first Tour he saw as a boy in Pau. His brother got a water bottle from one of the racers. He greatly regrets they don't still have their trophy.
He’d raced as an amateur in the ‘70s and knew how rife drugs were in the sport. They always have been. Anquetil fully acknowledged his use. He thought it a travesty that Lance had been shamed out of the sport, but was happy he was regaining his stature. If there had been a shady tree to plop under I could have listened to him until the cows came home, or peloton arrived. I needed to get off my feet and eat, so I bid him farewell. I found some shade and refueled. Then I went in search of the youth hostel and Skippy. The hostel was closed during the afternoon hours, so I returned to the race route a mile from the finish at a point where the crowd was thin to have a better chance of gathering the offerings from the caravan. It was twenty minutes behind schedule, meaning the peloton wasn't overly exerting itself. The organizers don’t want a prolonged gap between the caravan and the peloton, otherwise fans will become impatient and leave and that doesn’t look good on television. The caravan draws them early. Some leave after it passes, more than arrive later.
I had my best harvest yet, grabbing an early juice, knowing to be ready for it with hand outstretched, as that and the Vittel water are the two items that aren’t thrown, just handed out. Then I gathered some candy, a madeleine, a hat, a pack of Bic pens, a key chain in the shape of France, a wrist band, a shopping bag, refrigerator magnet, a lanyard, and a cardboard foldable CGT megaphone that Janina will be delighted with. Wisecracking journalists commented that the farmers who disrupted The Tour a couple stages ago were doing what the French do best—protest. The megaphone from the workers’ union represents that. It might be meant for cheering the racers, but with the CGT logo it carries the association of marching protesters shouting invective.
After the caravan passed I returned to the Giant Screen. There was the usual large crowd with the Norwegian flag on prominent display. It’s been a close race the past few years between Colombia and Norway for the most flags. The once dominant American flag is rarely seen now—only one so far this year along the road.
After the peloton charged past, the first 89 together, and Lawson Craddock the last 4:36 later, padding his overall place in last, I moseyed over to the team buses knowing I’d find Skippy there. He was holding his “Stop Killing Cyclists” sign and asking riders who he hadn’t photographed with it to stop for a photo. On the Rest Day in Carcassone he’d gotten Thomas and Froome and Prudhomme and quite a few others. After half an hour we headed to his hostel where I could get a much needed shower. It has been hot and sticky the last couple of days and the night before I had camped in a field abounding in ticks that had attached themselves to me, my worst case ever. And some mysterious insect other than a mosquito had found my non-tanned skin to its liking. I had a long night of itching. I needed a genuine shower, not just the dousing of spigots and faucets I’d been getting. Skippy had the added bonus for me of a five-pound tub of couscous that he had been bequeathed at one of The Tour’s VIP affairs. Skippy frequently is granted leftovers from such events. I could only eat a few mouthfuls with him before getting out on the road to Lourdes, the next day’s Départ, to find a place to camp.
I’d had another rich day of podcast listening. Ian Boswell mentioned he won a ten dollar bet from Geraint Thomas in the middle of the protest stage when Thomas didn’t think a teammate of Boswell’s could catch the breakaway early in the stage, thinking his efforts were futile going after it. Rupert Guinness recounted the death of Fabio Casartelli in the 1995 Tour, as the peloton passed his memorial, not too far from where Gilbert had a bad crash knocking him out of The Race, becoming the thirtyeth of the 176 starters to bow out.
Guinness said it always made him teary to remember that day when the announcement came over the race radio that Fabio Casartelli, rider number 114, had died. The next day’s stage was equally memorable as the peloton rode at parade pace. Even though they ended the stage way way past the designated time, French television didn’t cut away for its normal programming as it knew the finish with his Motorola teammates, including Lance, finishing first together followed closely by the team car with Casartelli’s bike perched atop dangling a black ribbon would be such a powerful image.
A Welsh journalist on the BBC podcast asserted that Geraint Thomas winning the L’Alpe d’Huez stage may be the greatest achievement by a Welsh athlete and if he held on to win The Tour he would be a great national hero. He said the biggest joke of The Tour for him was arguing with a Dutch journalist on how to pronounce Geraint’s name.
Dumoulin isn’t ready to concede The Tour to Thomas, even though he’s two minutes behind. A journalist asked him, “Is this now a race to keep second place?” He replied,”Argh. I always keep a little bit of faith, a little bit of hope.” He is afterall the last person not named Froome to win a Grand Tour with the Giro in 2017. François Thomazeau is among those thinking its a foregone conclusion. He said, “I don’t like to show off, though I am French, but I did say back when Thomas won the first mountain stage, that the winner of it usually goes on to win The Race.”
The podcasters certainly keep me entertained. I’m going to miss these guys.
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