Stage Seventeen



Four stages remaining and Vingegaard can enjoy them all after Pogaçar fell to pieces today losing an unimaginable six minutes, putting him a staggering seven-and-a-half minutes behind,  but still relatively comfortable in second place three minutes ahead of his teammate the Adam of the Yates brothers, provided he hasn’t been beset some ailment that might force him to quit the race. 

I witnessed the implosion of Pogaçar on the seventeen-mile climb up the Beyond Category Col de la Loze simply falling off the pace, not even being subjected to a sudden acceleration, with Ralph, who finally tracked me down.  We’d missed each other in Spain and on several other stages.  He took a break from The Tour after stage twelve foregoing the Alps and returned to his apartment near Mont Ventoux where he hangs out now rather than in Paris when he’s not in Telluride.

But he couldn’t so easily shed the urge to be riding The Tour route, so took a train to Chambery at the halfway point of Stage Eighteen this morning.  He rode it to its conclusion in Bourge-en-Bresse then took another train to Arbois north of Poligny, the Ville Arrivée for Stage Nineteen, to watch Stage Seventeen with me.  He has become a master of getting around France by train with his bike.  After the stage ended we rode six miles to Mouchard where he took his third train of the day to Dole to check on a property a friend is developing. He has no interest in the next two stages, as they could both end up in sprints, and he is very weary of Philipson winning them all. 

The Tour used to give out an award to the best decorated city on the route but too many cities were upset they didn’t win that the award was discontinued.  The lack of an award may have put a dent into the grandiosity of the declarations along the route, but not in Poligny.  It would have won the award this year if it was still being offered, as it was unrestrained in the range and variety of its decorations.   It was a never-never land of Tour euphoria.

The town must have had a very large and enthusiastic committee overseeing the operation, as clearly many hours and energy were devoted to it.   It was the first city since Bilbao to have a digital countdown to when The Tour was coming, though just in days, not to the second as the one in Bilbao.  

Its roundabouts were Tour-themed and were the site of oversized wooden bikes that could be found all over.

Just about every post in town had a Tour jersey attached to it.

They were also placed in flowerbeds and anywhere else someone could reach.

There were also Tour flower arrangements.  

And along the finishing straight a business had mounted bikes on its roof leading to the ubiquitous “Vive Le Tour” exclamation.  I was glad I had arrived two days ahead of the peloton and had the time to seek them out.

Not long after Ralph and I parted and I continued another hour before camping further closing the ninety mile gap between Poligny and Belfort, the start of Stage Twenty, I came upon a magnetic red A on a circular white background that had fallen off a car.  It is similar to the A with a slash through it anarchists plaster here and there. This A is for apprentice and is slapped onto to cars being driven by learners.  It will be another nice French souvenir.  I’ve only added one license plate to my collection in the two thousand miles I’ve ridden so far and it had a B on it for Belgium.  It would be nice to have a complete collection of all 95 of the French départements, but they are rarer to find than team water bottles.  In all these years I have only found one and that was in French Guiana.

Road side scavenging is not one of the allures of cycling in France.  I have found one neckerchief, a pink one.  Much more common are packets of tissues.  Every few days I come upon a pack, either in tact or missing just one.  France may be the leading consumer of them.  The tissues are sturdy enough, almost as much as a paper towel, they are useful in cleaning my Tupperware bowl.  I am well enough stocked I don’t often have to stop for them, but when I am running low I know I don’t have to wait long to restock.  I’m not sure if they qualify as one of the charms of France, but they are useful.