The day before the Tour de France. It’s windy outside and it’s raining. This is not unusual for Yorkshire because it’s a windy and rainy place.
But when you put 198 nervous bike riders on miles of narrow, exposed and unforgiving roads and tell them to race, the ingredients for drama could not be more potent.
Stages 1 and 2 of the Tour de France are being talked about as the toughest in the race’s modern history, maybe even ever. Not that anyone is alive to remember those days 100 years ago.
Heavy rain showers are forecast as well, and while some will disagree, the wind may damage the chances of a number of contenders before they even roll into France.
Most of the names have tested themselves over the parcours of both these stages, although BMC’s Tejay van Garderen has not. He’s only ridden Stage 2, but admits that the less undulating Stage 1 will also be hard. For him it’s just about staying “calm, consistent, and out of trouble”.
One team who could profit is Tinkoff Saxo. On Stage 13 into Saint-Amand-Montrond they put big time into Chris Froome, when Michael Rogers initiated a move with four of his teammates including, Alberto Contador.
Froome lost one minute to Contador that day, and you’d think he will be super attentive on these opening stages to prevent the same thing happening.
Orica-GreenEDGE leader Simon Gerrans certainly emphasised the need to be well placed in the bunch at all times on Sunday’s stage. He’s not ruling a shot at the yellow jersey on this day, if he can do well in Stage 1.
OGE team director Matt White is less concerned about the wind, but really concerned about the potential dramas rain could bring on Sunday.
“The wind will have an effect but if we get rain it changes things a lot. It’ll make that much more nervous and stressful,” White told me. “The final is pretty tight and a few of the descents, off Holme Moss, that sort of thing.”
Despite that, the conditions aren’t as extreme as he was expecting.
“I had heard that the roads are super tight and super narrow but they are no worse than Belgium, and the road surfaces are immaculate.
“They have resurfaced a lot of the roads. I think in the last four climbs are quite narrow and tight but nothing more than these guys experience in the Classics.”
I hope White is right because I saw a very nasty stretch of road on a left hand corner on a descent just below the village of Pecket Well, which will feature midway through Stage 2. The bitumen around the ‘cats eyes’ in the middle of the road had been gouged out, and the hole was several inches deep and metres long. Maybe the local council has patched it up, but I would hate for my wheel to hit it at any speed let alone descending during the Tour de France.
Wind, rain and some variable road surfaces, oh and deadly Yorkshire dry-stone walls, are not what some riders want in the early stages of a Grand Tour – certainly not Matt White anyway.
“This first week is pretty stressful,” he told me.
“It’s the hardest start to the Tour de France in the modern era, for sure.”
And then we have the pave, but that’s another story.
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