Stage Eighteen

 

The towns were few and far between and not very large in my sixty mile jaunt from the large city of  Besançon to Belfort, Stage Twenty Ville Départ. None seemed likely to have a bar to watch the end of the day’s stage.  The hilly terrain was going to make it a challenge to reach Belfort in time for the finish.  It was relentless.  If it had been a mountain stage affecting the GC I could have detoured from the route at a couple of spots to a larger town, but since it would likely finish in a sprint, getting the results on my iPad would have to suffice.  When I checked at five there was still forty kilometers left in the stage.  I was relieved when I checked the cyclingnews website that the lead story wasn’t that Pogaçar had abandoned.

When I checked back forty-five minutes later I learned that I’d missed a thrilling finish with three of the breakaway riders holding off Philipson by just ten meters, a mere eyelash.  He won the sprint, but it was only for fourth.  The winner was another Dane, the third of this year’s Tour, Kasper Asgreen of the Belgian Soudal Quick Step team that Cavendish rode for until this year and which declined to include him on last year’s Tour team even though he won four stages for them the year before preferring to go with a younger sprinter.  The team usually racks up more wins than any other, but it was having a lackluster year.  This was a much needed win for them.

With Belfort the Départ for Saturday’s Stage Twenty the course markers wouldn’t go up until the next morning.  There were, however, other markers already posted for the press and caravan and VIPs and fans.  

And the street the peloton would take out of town, named for Jean Jaurés the popular Socialist politician assassinated in the early 1900s, had signs indicating the route.  

There was even a sign for the Giant Screen.  The poster above it on lamp posts here and there was about the extent of the decorations in this large city that has hosted The Tour enough times that it seemed nonplussed by the honor.

The most notable decoration was a few miles out of town in a roundabout by a MacDonald’s with someone going to the effort to make a polka skirt for the statue of a horse.

I always begin my series of Tour podcasts listening to what Armstrong and Hincapie have to say about the previous day’s stage.  Word is quite a few associated with The Tour listen to their analysis and recollections from their racing days.  Other podcasters pay attention to the too and will sometimes mention something they have brought up. 

Former Tour rider David Millar, who has won stages in all three Grand Tours, and commentator Ned Boulting, covering The Tour for British television record their Never Strays Far podcast every day as they drive to their hotel after each stage sometimes with a guest including Cadel Evans and Marcel Kittle.  They aren’t among the  Lance listeners, as they confessed they had no idea what Wout Poels meant when he said he wasn’t a “pannenkoek” in his post-race press conference after winning Stage Fifteen.  Lance and George drop that bit of Dutch racing slang into their podcast all the time.  It is one of their favorite expressions along with “see you in the douches” (the showers) after a racer is dropped and done for.

They too  picked up on Poels’ mention of “pannenkoek” in his press conference and were thrilled by it.  It literally means “pancake” and is slang for “pack-fill,” someone who is just an average racer.   Boulting and Millar happened to have the Dutch cyclist Ellen Van Dijk, five time world champion time trialist, on their podcast after Poels’ “pannenkoek” comment.  She was able to give them a full explanation.

It was surprising the word wasn’t in Millar’s vocabulary after all his years in the peloton.  He was a founding member of the Garmin team with Christian Vande Velde and is attentive to what’s going on around him to know me as Christian’s friend.  He spotted me in a cemetery getting water in Corsica when the team was out on a training ride before the Grand Départ there and pointed me out to Christian riding behind him.  Christian made a quick detour to say hello and credited Millar for noticing me.  

He’s mentioned on his podcast that he gets out on a Brampton folding bike during The Tour whenever he can.  He even rode the transfer after the stage finish at the Nogaro speedway to Pau, some thirty miles.  I regretted I hadn’t chosen to go to Pau.  It would have given Millar a thrill to spot his former Garmin jersey.