Saturday, July 27, 2019

Stage Twenty


When an older, bald-headed guy sat down in front of me before one of the films about bicycle touring in France I thought it might be Léo. I asked him if he was a Crazy Guy on a Bike, since Léo has made several contributions to the website. When the guy gave me a puzzled look, I realized he wasn’t Léo.

I had to wait until the next day to meet Lèo after we’d arranged to have lunch at the South Pole of the festival. I told him I’d be wearing a Tour red polka dot cap and clutching a Sky water bottle. We didn’t really need these accoutrements, as I immediately recognized him from the photos on his book jackets and photos that accompanied his crazyguyonabike travelogues.


Before we had a chance to take our seats at a long table under a tent for lunch Hubert, the director of the festival came along with Ted Simon, the author of “Jupiter’s Travels,” who I was hoping to meet. We only had time for a quick introduction, not even time for me to ask if he had arrived on his motorcycle. I was hoping he could join us for lunch but he had to be elsewhere. It would have been a dizzying conversation if he had, as both Léo and Ted have written books that sit prominently on my bookshelf that always gladden my heart when my gaze catches their spines.



Instead it was just Léo and me and his wife Steph jabbering away. Lèo and I have been corresponding for more than three years when I contacted him through his publisher asking about graves of Tour de France winners since he occasionally mentions them in his books. He is also on the selection committee for the Paris touring cyclist festival and has been trying to recruit me to participate, but it’s in January when I’m off touring in warmer climes.

He’d attended Hubert’s festival three times, once giving a presentation on biking across the US, which he has written a book about—“Sticky Buns Across America.”  He and Steph hadn’t planned on attending this year, as they were going to take a ride to Belgium, but when they learned I would be in attendance they decided to alter their plans and head to Belgium from Le Caylar.

He and Steph are ardent touring cyclists. Though they are English, they have lived in a small town north of Toulouse for a couple of decades. They are liable to go off for a few day tour in their vicinity whenever they can’t resist the ever-nagging impulse. We’d had such a wide-ranging correspondence, it felt like getting together with long-time friends.

I was surprised to learn that though he has written more than a dozen books on cycling, and wrote a monthly feature on cycling’s past for the magazine “Procycling” for more than a decade, he’d never subjected himself to the ordeal of covering The Tour as a journalist.  He was glad never having had to drive all over the country chasing after riders upon the completion of a stage. He preferred regarding the sport from a distance and didn’t even feel any compulsion to watch today’s climatic stage preferring to give priority to Hubert’s program.

So it was left to me to report back to him if Alaphiliippe could cling to the podium.  Léo gave preference to him and the Dutch rider in fourth over his fellow Brit Thomas.  But as all the prognosticators have been predicting, Alaphiliippe couldn’t keep up on the stage’s final 22-mile climb, finishing over three minutes back and dropping to fifth.  Besides losing the glory of the podium, there is a considerable difference in prize winnings from second to fifth, money that he would share with his teammates and would mean more to them since none have the hefty salary he does.

Thomas and Bernal finished together behind Nibali, Valverde and Landa, preserving their top two spots on the podium.  Bardet was probably the happiest man in the peloton that Bernal didn’t finish any higher on the stage, as it would have earned him an additional ten points in the climbing competition if he had finished second on the stage, enough to exceed  Bardet, taking that jersey along with Yellow and White for best young rider.  Bernal would have no doubt gained extra points too if three climbs hadn’t been eliminated because of the weather the past two stages. 

It will fuel another tirade from Armstrong over what a joke the climbing competition is, with the best climber rarely winning it, rather some opportunist who went out ahead of the peloton before crunch time and gathered up points on climbs.  Armstrong was belittling Bardet for being dropped by domestiques on yesterday’s climb, hardly the mark of the best climber of The Race, and todaynhe was lagging behind with Alaphilippe clinging to his wheel not enough able to support his fellow French rider in his bid for the podium.  Armstrong said the best climber never won the jersey in the seven Tours he won.  His co-host asked who that was.  Armstrong replied, “You’re looking at him.”

Colombia can now celebrate having a Tour winner and further celebrate that there were three Colombians in the top eight.  They’ve been waiting over thirty years for this moment since Luis Herrera justifiably won the best climber jersey in The Tour in 1985 and 1987 and became the second rider to win the jersey in all three Grand Tours.  Quintana, who had promised to be the first Tour winner after finishing second twice, came in 8th, fifteen seconds behind Uran, who also had a second place in The Tour riding for the predecessor of his American team Education First.   The German Buchmann was unable to overtake the Dutch rider Kruigswijke for a podium spot, as they both finished six seconds behind Bernal and Thomas, so it will be a Colombian/Welsh/Dutch podium.


Now it’s just the ceremonial stage into Paris with a final sprint showdown on the Champs Elysèes and Sky/Ineos prevails again. It is their seventh Tour win in eight years with four different winners. As Lance said, “That’s saying something.”  The team has a far bigger budget than any other team, but they are winning as much with expertise as money.  Bobby Julich, who rode and worked for quite a few teams in a period of twenty years including a few with Bjarne Riis, says he learned more from his tenure coaching at Sky than from anywhere else. 

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