Stage Twenty-One

 



Thanks to getting into Paris late last night and not this afternoon after my missed train fiasco, I was able to bike out to  Chatou, today’s Ville Départ, ten miles from Ralph’s apartment in Montparnesse, upping my total of Ville Étapes for this year to twenty-one of the thirty-nine, with three of them both a Ville Arrivée and a Ville Départ.  I managed to ride some of all but four stages—the first, two in the Alps and one in the Pyrenees. 

It was an excellent  tour and Tour.  As Lachlan Morton said upon completing his private Tour de France, only a select few are capable of riding THE Tour de France, but anyone “could buy a bike and put some bags on it and go tour France and there’s no one who can stop you.”  That is if you’re not trying to follow The Tour, as one never knows when the gendarmes might intercede.

Ralph and I were denied riding today’s course shortly after we had completed the seven kilometer neutralized zone and set out from the Kilometer Zero marker, where a line of cyclists waited to have their picture taken, including Ralph, just as there was in Chatou at the electronic countdown sign to Tour Day.

Granted, we had gotten a late start having searched out two Air France offices in the city first hoping to learn if I would need an additional Covid test to go along with my vaccination to fly home on Wednesday.  But, as we feared, neither were open on Sunday, so I will remain in suspense until tomorrow.  It was more than an hour before the caravan was set to take over the course, but that was early enough to declare it off-limits.  We continued on taking parallel roads, as there was an abundance of in the urban sprawl. 

We returned to the course after several miles, hoping that it might be open after that earlier closed sector, but that was not to be.  It was near the lone category climb on the route, so we decided to walk our bikes along the course to that point.  When we reached the three-kilometer climb there was a stretch without gendarmes so we followed others who had resumed riding until shortly before the summit where there were gendarmes and where we intended to await the caravan.  

The crowd was much sparser than out in rural France, but there were still a good many lining the road, including a Swedish guy who was drawn to us by our English.  He greeted us with, “You guys must have come a long ways to be here.”  We couldn’t guess his accent, as it is rare to meet a Swede at The Tour.  He was married to a French woman and had lived in Paris for twenty-six years. He didn’t often seek out The Tour.  He was here this year to treat his young son and his friends to the spectacle.  

Ralph and I didn’t care to be stranded at this point for the next two hours until the peloton came by, wanting to get back to Paris in time to see Cavendish break Merckx’s record on the Champs Élysées.  The Swede told us we could take a nearby dirt road for a mile or so and it would put us on roads that could get us back to Paris.

We opted to stop just before Versailles and watch the peloton pass there.  They toodled past at what cyclingnews called a “club-run pace,” just twenty-miles per hour somewhat spread out with just limited drafting.  When I’m riding at twenty miles per hour with the Downer’s  Grove Cycling Club, I’m close to my limit.  Pogacar was in casual conversation with a rival as he went by.  The pace was so relaxed the course marker crew was able to keep up and grab all the course markers before the fans could.  We were disappointed, as we were set to pounce on two just up the road. 

We joined quite a few cyclists on the road just after the peloton and all the support vehicles went by and followed the route into the city to within a couple blocks of Ralph’s apartment.  We were surprised to see a marker the crew had missed.  When we swooped in on it we had to pass on it too, as it was nailed in, rather than tied with wire.  The nails are hard to remove and generally damage the marker.  It was indication that the crew wasn’t intent on removing all evidence of The Tour, but rather that it wanted to recycle the markers.

Several miles later we came upon another that was tied to a metal pole.  It was on the far side of a roundabout that was out of the way of the pickup crew, so we were able to nab it.  Ralph was monitoring the peloton’s eight transits of the Champs to see whether we had time to make it to his apartment to see the conclusion or if we’d need to stop in a bar to watch it.  At 7:07 the peloton had seventeen kilometers and two laps to go. We were within two miles of Ralph’s apartment so it was going to be close.  It was close enough that we had to bypass another course marker left behind.

After we scampered up the flight of stairs to Ralph’s apartment and turned on the television, the left-hand corner of the TV flashed 2.7 kilometers to go.  Cavendish’s lead-out train wasn’t in command, as it had been in his previous wins, but after the peloton rounded the final bend and headed into the  straightaway with less than a kilometer to the finish he was seven riders back on the wheel of Van Aert, a good one to be on. 

A side view betrayed a pained and uncertain look. It told all, as Cavendish didn’t have enough in his legs to fly past everyone as he had four previous times this Tour.  Not only was he beaten by Van Aert,  but Phillipsen too, who he had tamed four times in the Tour of Turkey earlier in the season announcing to the world he had regained his form after three years of struggle.

Van Aert could be pleased he preserved his fellow Belgian Merckx’s joint record with Cavendish for most Tour wins, but even more so that he almost become the second focal point of The Tour behind Pogacar with his three dramatic stage wins—over Ventoux, in a time trial and in the final, glamour sprint stage. Cavendish couldn’t have looked more disconsolate.  The world of cycling had expected today to be his coronation as King of Tour wins. 

He was clearly worn out and simply didn’t have the legs.  His team too did not dominate the sprint and pull him to the line.  This could be his last chance.  He’s not likely to have such a weak sprint field next year, nor is it likely that he’ll have as good form as he did early in The Tour.  Still four wins this Tour and thirty-four for his career should be greatly celebrated.  It’s a shame he had to end The Tour on a sour note, even as winner of the Green Jersey.  

After all the post-Race replays and podium presentations Ralph and I went bsck out to see if anyone had nabbed that last marker, just a mile away.  They had not, so now Ralph has one for each of his windows.

Cavendish has long been Ralph’s hero, so the additional course marker did a little to salve his hurt.