Stage Fifteen

  

I slipped out of the Pyrenees leaving on the road the peloton came in on the day before on Stage Fourteen. One lone course marker remained, but it had been damaged by someone trying to remove it without a tool to twist off the wire holding it in place. The gradual descent led to the longest flat stretch of road since I arrived in France as I headed to Muret, Ville Départ for Stage Seventeen on Bastille Day.  It is a large enough town I didn’t anticipate any difficulty finding a bar on a Sunday afternoon.  

The town was adorned with dangling baskets of flowers with renditions of Tour jerseys.

I came upon several small cafes with tables out front, but they were felafel places and tea house without a television.  The first bar/outdoor cafe I came to in the city center by the closed tourist office didn’t have a television and didn’t know of a bar that did.  I circled around taking various spokes of narrow streets from the quiet city center until I found a tiny grungy neighborhood bar serving Portuguese food.  It had a small television up high in a corner no one was watching, so on came The Tour.

I had to sit at the most distant of the three tables to be able to see the television, but too far to make out the graphics.  One of the other tables was occupied, while every seat at the bar was occupied. There were forty miles and two category one climbs left as the breakaway group five minutes ahead of the Yellow Jersey group was about to enter Andorra.

I barely had time to settle in before a couple of well-inebriated guys tried to engage me in conversation.  They persisted in trying to make themselves understood even though I told them I didn’t speak French.  One was a harmless old man and the other was a black forty year-old body builder type in a singlet with an affection for men.  He bought me an orangina and started taking selfie’s of the two of us.  At one point he pressed his lips to my forehead.  The bartender couldn’t interfere as he was being yelled at by a young woman who might have been his daughter.  That went on for several minutes, while he and everyone else ignored her as if it was a regular occurrence.  

I got up and retrieved a map of The Tour de France from my bike to distract the gay guy.  He took the map and showed it to others in the bar.  They were all excited about The Tour honoring their city with the Bastille Day start, but didn’t seem to know anything about The Tour route or pay any attention to the proceedings on the television.  

While I was being distracted, Sep Kuss, one of the four Americans in The Race, escaped from the breakaway group and taken nearly a minute lead over everyone other than the Spanish veteran Valverde, who Armstrong once anointed as his successor after a particular fierce battle in the Pyrenees.  Valverde was in hard pursuit of Kuss on the descent to the line, closing to within twenty seconds of him.  It didn’t seem likely that Kuss could hold him off, but he succeeded, looking more relieved than ecstatic when he crossed the finish line for the first American win in ten years since Tyler Farrah beat Cavendish in a sprint.

Kuss had been Roglic’s most valuable ally in the mountains last year, his last teammate to stick with him, and showed promise of becoming a domineering rider himself, but his personality inclined him to being satisfied with his role as a domestique.  He is so self-effacing he said after his win that it was just a thrill to be riding in The Tour.  This effort will certainly elevate his status and perhaps give him the confidence to take on the responsibility of being a leader.  

Back down the road the French rider Martin, who had jumped from ninth to second yesterday, fell back to ninth as expected, with Uran reassuming first place behind Pogacar, who once again has a comfortable lead of over five minutes.  Time is running out for anyone to unseat him, with just three stages left in the mountains before a flat stage, then the time trial, which he will dominate, and the ceremonial ride into Paris.  The four riders with a realistic chance for second all rode in together.  Whatever feeble attempts any of them made to attack were all thwarted.  Roglic is missed more than ever.  He would have tested Pogacar more effectively than any of them, and shook things up.

There almost seems to be a more exciting battle for the Polka Dot Jersey than the podium as Poels today edged out Woods on each of the climbs to take it.  Van Aert and Quintana are also vying for it.  The four of them are within ten points of each other.  They will have mini-battles at each pass in the next three stages that will certainly heighten fan interest.

I have reached a region of rolls of hay, which makes for camping of the first order.  I enjoyed my most expansive campground of the trip, and had it all to my self, almost.  A wild boar came grunting out of the nearby forest during the night, but fortunately kept his curiosity at a distance.

The sunflowers are in full glory adding even more luster to the cycling.