I think the Tour could end tomorrow and it would still be remembered as being more exciting than last year’s entire race.
It’s been crash bang and a whole lot of wallop so far, and we’re only on the cusp of Stage 3.
How and why? I barely want to question it as I might jinx it.
Well with Orica-GreenEDGE going uber-geurilla with their marketing ideas (‘Let’s crash the bus under that bridge! We’ll get loads of airtime!’) and Pat McQuaid sending his dog out into the road at key moments, the sneaky devil, the race is getting a helping hand in raising the excitement stakes from unexpected quarters.
There is also, racing-wise, one obvious reason: there’s no one in charge anymore, there is no ‘patron’, the name given to the commanding rider of the day – ‘The Daddy’, so to speak.
This is the guy that controls the renegades in the pack and lays down the law.
Lance Armstrong was the last to inhabit the role, though to find a true example of what the word really signifies you have to go back to that snarling Frenchman who was in his heyday over 20 years ago, Bernard Hinault.
They called him ‘The Badger’ for a reason, and if you’ve ever seen that beast trapped in a corner you’ll know why.
This current generation of GC contenders might be fine bike riders but they couldn’t, to borrow Shane Sutton’s phrase that featured in the Wiggin’s documentary A Year In Yellow, “pull the foreskin off a rice pudding.”
If faced with two dark alleys and one contained Armstrong, Bernard and Laurent Fignon, the other Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Vicenzo Nibali, I think we all know which way we’d be strolling.
I’m not saying I fancy my fighting chances, just one lot would soon be selling your organs and wearing your ears and testes on necklaces within five minutes, the others would be asking how many sugars you like in your tea and enquiring after the health of your mother.
But did I speak too soon?
Yesterday we caught a glimpse of a certain spry Englishman hitting it off the front with a few kilometres to go, jauntily putting down an early marker with a move that no doubt raised more than a few weary eyebrows in the pack behind him.
Froome might be about as dynamic off the bike as a depressed omelette but it has to be said that he is a bit of a ninja on it.
Opinion on him is massively divided and, from what I’ve read most is in the ‘no’ camp, but you can’t deny that he puts in a pretty killer attack.
We’ve seen it all year. He gets a scent and he goes, and in that way he is far more decisive and, has to be said, alive on the bike than his erstwhile teammate, Sir Brad.
So why did he attack though? Aren’t you supposed to conserve energy for the days ahead? Let’s hear from him.
“The main objective for us was to stay out of trouble today, stay at the front, and not lose any time to the main contenders,” he said.
“Eddie [Boasson Hagen] was there at the end and was given the freedom to have a go at the sprint, and he ended up with fifth.
“All-in-all it was a good stage for us having kept our places on the GC and allowing Eddie to give it a go.
“With that little climb about 10km from the finish – I knew the descent was tricky and dangerous. I was on the front with Richie and I thought it might be a good time, just to push on a little bit, get ahead and take the descent at my own pace and stay out of trouble.
“It’s always good to keep people on their toes.”
Seconds, seconds, seconds. It is the steady accumulation of these little units of time that win a race.
Froome though must have known that he wasn’t going to win yesterday, that he couldn’t have held off the pack, but then look at Jan Bakelants and tell me the impossible never happens.
The lad made me lose my voice for half an hour, I was shouting at the screen so hard. He must have been feeding off the energy willing him on from millions of rabid fans around the world.
Best post-race interview I’ve ever heard too, full of the wide-eyed wonder of this great old race.
And so onto Stage 3. More mountains, sir? Yes please.
One cat 4 at 12km, two Cat 3 climbs (summits at 58km and 75km respectively) then a Cat 3 whose peak comes at 132 km, then a downward thrust to the line in Calvi. At 145.5km this is going to be a fast, hard stage.
The last climb is only 3.3km but at 8.1 percent you can expect all the big boys to be throwing their teams into the mix one the run-up to it, and then all hell could break lose.
It’s the usual suspects for this one really, with Sagan and Boasson Hagen already looking good, Philippe Gilbert riding into what looks like decent form and, we might expect, Froome looking to sneak off with a few strong guys.
It’s all about the composition of the break that determines what will stick and what won’t, as we witnessed yesterday, and to which Bakelenats is most thankful for today.
We might not see a stage finish as breathless as that one for some years, but let’s hope the excitement continues.
On y va!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=svonzJKfQuU
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