Stage Nine

 

Much of my ride today was along the Rhone River to Valence, Ville Arrivée for Tuesday’s Stage Ten.  The river was running high thanks to all the rain, including a couple of hard downpours this morning.  The rain was spent by early afternoon, so it turned out to be a fine day.  

The rain must have been hung up in the Alps to the east, as the peloton had a long, wet afternoon.  Everyone was wearing rain jackets when I settled in to a bar in Tournon-sur-Rhone at 4:20 with twenty-five kilometers left in the stage, several kilometers before the final climb to the ski resort of Tignes.  I had a choice of bar/cafes lined up on the Main Street through the town looking out on the Rhone.  The music was much too loud and the bar much too dark in the first one.  The second was just fine with an electric outlet by the table nearest the television, which I had all to myself, as everyone else preferred to be sitting outside.

I thought I was going to have the cyclingnews.com minute-by-minute updates on the stage to supplement my viewing when my iPad reported free local WiFi, but it refused to connect.  I had been thwarted earlier in the day at the tourist office in Viene too, as it’s WiFi wasn’t operating.  That has been the case all too often this year with tourist offices cutting expenses.  

It’s been a challenge  finding WiFi to download the cycling podcasts reporting on The Tour.  MacDonald’s WiFi has been woefully weak, incapable of downloading podcasts. I discovered a couple of days ago that the E.Lecterc supermarket has a strong enough WiFi to instantly download, so that has become my supermarket of choice.  

If I’d been able to access the cyclingnews commentary I would have learned that Quintana, one of two Colombians in a breakaway eight minutes ahead of Pogacar and the GC hopefuls, had gathered enough points on the earlier climbs to have taken the polka dot jersey.  That would have somewhat excused his being dropped shortly after the Australian Ben O’Connor joined Quintana and Higuita .  

Quintana evidently wasn’t so intent on winning the stage, but rather taking the climber’s jersey.  That didn’t keep the cameras from focusing on him as he faded away, returning to his struggles time after time, as if it were the last gasps in the career of this two-time second-place finisher of The Tour.  Froome, his adversary in those races, was too far back for the cameras to be anywhere near him.  The same at this point for yesterday’s surprise Van Aert, who had moved up to second, as he was far, far back. He didn’t have anything left today as he lost twenty-one minutes, ending all speculation that he could be a contender.  

O’Connor soon dropped Higuita too and sped on alone, at one point coming within seven seconds of taking the Yellow Jersey.  Pogachar meanwhile was looking unconcerned as he rode in the draft of two of his teammates, even sitting up to remove his yellow rain jacket and then handing it to the cameraman on a motorcycle who was shadowing him.  It seemed like he was just biding his time before he ignited and left everyone in his dust. 

Ineos took over the leading chores from Pogachar’s team, with Geraint Thomas looking strong as chief domestique, as he’d been in the Froome years.  It was good news to see him recovered from his dislocated shoulder and riding strongly, after finishing thirty-five minutes back with Roglic yesterday. Roglic wasn’t feeling so recovered, as he opted to drop out after yesterday’s stage.  Van der Poel did the same, as he said he would even before The Race started, so he could prepare for the mountain bike race in the Olympics.  

I kept waiting for Pogacar to make his charge as he did yesterday, but he showed great patience, waiting until Carapaz made his inevitable attack four kilometers from the finish.  After following him, he launched himself up the road in spectacular fashion, suddenly a dozen or more bike lengths ahead of everyone he’d been riding with giving them no chance to follow.  

O’Connor was in the process of winning, so overtaking him was out of the question, but he might have been able to catch four of the other five riders up the road for some third place bonus seconds, almost trivial with the huge margin he has already opened up on everyone.  He fell twenty-eight seconds short of third, finishing sixth a little over six minutes behind O’Connor, who moves up to second, two minutes behind Pogacar. Uran moved up to third, over five minutes back.

After my ninety minute television break I continued on to Valence an hour away where I could get in a few miles of actual Tour route for the day.  The city’s welcoming roundabout was adorned with a most pleasingly artistic Tour tribute. 

Billboards throughout the city had some extra flair to them as well.  

I headed to the stage finish on the outskirts of the city by a MacDonalds and a Decathalon sporting goods store where Cavendish could well  win his third stage on this flat stage with just one categorized climb, a Four.  I then headed up Boulevard 
John Fitzgerald Kennedy that the peloton would be coming in on.  I followed it out of the city in search of a place to camp on the stage route.  Four miles later I was in a forest just off a field of freshly mown hay.