Stage Six

 

And order is fully restored to The Tour.  The Yellow Jersey did not give HIndley the extra watts he needed to keep up with Vingegaard and Pogaçar. As expected they left him behind when the climbing got serious on the Tourmalet leaving him two-and-a-half minutes in arrears by day’s end dropping him to third place behind the two studs, a place on the podium he will be battling to retain over the next two weeks while Vingegaard and Poçachar wage all-out war for the top rung.

After the Tourmalet came a final climb to the finish where Vingegaard and Poçachar went toe to toe until the final mile-and-a-half when Poçachar did to Vingegaard what he did to him yesterday and went on to win the stage, though not by enough to claim the Yellow Jersey, which fell into Vingegaard’s lap.  Order was so fully restored that Poçachar regained his impish sense of humor.  It was his tenth Tour stage victory.  He was so happy he said, “I’m coming for you Mark,” referring to Cavendish and his thirty-four wins.  He might have said the same thing to Darrigade in Dax, as his twenty-two stage wins are the fifth most ranking behind Merckx, Cavendish, Hinault and Leducq.

Cavendish would have laughed at his brashness, as that is his modus operandi as well.  A former teammate, David Millar, who now does Tour commentary and is part of a podcast, mentioned that he asked Cavendish the day before what he thought of Hindley surprising all and taking the Yellow Jersey.  His response was, “I don’t care.  That’s not my race,” as all he’s interested in is the sprints and the Green Jersey.  

I had the full Tour flavor watching the last ninety minutes of the stage in a working class bar on the outskirts of Libourne, the Ville Départ for Stage Eight.   It was actually a PMU horse racing bar that usually restricts its televisions to horse races.  I was lucky there was a third television across from the bar for the enjoyment of the bartender and a few others, with the two sets showing racing in a back room with grizzled characters sitting at tables filling out betting cards.  Disheveled characters shuffled in and out of the bar all the while I was there including a woman with a lot of rouge and a dog.  She seemed to know all and exchanged kisses on the cheeks with just about everyone.

It was only a minor distraction to the action on the screen with the Van Aert the hero of the day leading his teammate Vingegaard with Pogaçar on his wheel and five others up the final climb until he’d exhausted himself and Vingegaard took over 
while Pogaçar bided his time. Among those he was towing was American Powless, who’d gone up the road to collect king of the mountain points, regaining the lead for the polka dot jersey.  Vingegaard yesterday waited until the final kilometer of the last climb to attack.  Pogaçar went with just under three kilometers to go.  

It was a great relief to him that Vingegaard couldn’t follow, as he admitted that his explosive effort the day before  was quite impressive and that The Tour was over if he could continue that.  But The Tour is not over by any means.   No one is ready to concede the title to either of them.  There will be a truce on the next two flat stages until Sunday’s sure to be epic climb up the legendary Puy de Dome where Anquetil and Poulidor had one of the all-time great battles in 1964, which this just might rival.

I had course markers guiding me for several hours as the crew placing them caught up to me at 10:30.  After four hours I was back on my own when I left the Stage Seven course that concluded in Bordeaux and headed to the Stage Eight start in Libourne. I was pedaling at a steady clip intent on making it to Libourne by four.  I was catching up on the five podcasts I keep up with offering daily half hour or so analysis of each stage by experts who have ridden The Tour or covered it for years.  All were aghast at the UAE and Jumbo Visma teams allowing Hindley to escape up the road the day before.  Luke Rowe, the Sky team captain who shepherded Froome to four Tour wins, called it a “massive fuck-up.” George Hincapie on the Armstrong podcast said their team director Johan Bruyneel would have been screaming in to the radio for everyone to chase down such a breakaway.

When the day’s action in the Pyrenees concluded I set out on Stage Eight, whose course markers wouldn’t be placed until the next morning.  I was still in the Gironde département as evidenced by the signs I had seen along the road all day.

The same message had been painted on the road hoping to encourage The Tour organizers to include their département again.

I encountered only one cyclist all day who might have been riding The Tour route, a young guy who sped past me with a mini-frame pack who blurted “courage” not wishing to slow for anything more. A handful of camping vans had claimed spots along the road with a better than twenty-four wait until the caravan and the peloton would pass. 

A traveling Belgium bar and cafe had set up shop with a giant photo of Wout Van Aert at one end of their spread and a vintage Eddie Merckx car at the other.  

Between were several tables under umbrellas and music coming out of speakers.  It was a pleasure to be riding the route without gendarmes stationed at every intersection awaiting the opportunity to tell me to stop riding and to be able to take a break without the worry of trying to get as far down the road as possible before it became closed down.