Stage 2
and the Tour farewelled Düsseldorf as the circus headed to Liège in Belgium.
The rain that marred the stage 1 time trial persisted into Sunday making the
rain jacket the choice item of clothing.
Meanwhile Gabs
checked out the German town of Monschau near the border with Belgium. Monschau’s
claim to fame is mustard and no doubt the riders will be hoping they cut the mustard
to last all the way to Paris.
Trout with
butter and buttery biscuits were on the menu so Gabs is going out hard this
Tour and it’s clear to see it’s not just the French who love ‘die Butter’. With
so much butter in the recipes you’re going to need two, no, make that three
blocks of butter which takes the buerremetric counter to 810g.
Out on the
course and there was no let up from the rain which dampened the field art
efforts. By 'effort' I don’t mean much more than people walking around in circles
forming moving bike wheels, however there was one exceptional piece of
Neanderthal field art.
Still it seemed
the German field art creators were resigned to 'hey, we’re mediocre at this,
but cut us some slack, it's raining'. I don’t think Robbie has quite come to
grips with the field art concept and called one piece a ‘dancing sign board’.
A condiment that matches the jersey.
The rain
caused more havoc out on the road with Richie Porte and Chris Froome crashing
but didn’t lose time. With conditions so slippery Robbie advised to avoid the
white lines, good advice kids if you don’t want to fail the doping control.
A feature
of the SBS coverage are the vignettes with the riders. Mark Cavendish and
Taylor Phinney featured and the race radio bablefish inexplicably blew up
trying to translate the Manx Missile. In perhaps the biggest sporting understatement
of the year Phinney said he's going to be 'riding his bike a lot'.
The day’s
McKeenanism jersey goes to Robbie. Thomas Voeckler is often described as the ‘French
housewives’ choice’, to Robbie he’s 'the man of the hanging out tongue'.
But the
points go to, "when the wheat is being harvested and the corn is head high
the Tour is done". Not sure if Robbie took inspiration from ‘when the corn
is high as an elephant’s eye’ from the Oklahoma! tune ‘Oh, What a Beautiful
Morning’ or ‘corn’s too high to see which way we should go’ from Dylan Scott’s ‘Turn
Rows’.
The number
of American riders at the Tour has not gone unnoticed. In fact they can be
counted on the one hand of a three-toed sloth.
Er, that didn’t quite make sense, but never mind. But when you compare three
riders to Australia’s nine we are punching well above our weight.
Then there’s
tiny New Zealand with four. Robbie noted Kiwi riders are ‘cut from good cloth’
and you have to pay that.
The
weather had improved somewhat by the time the riders reached Liège and Marcel
Kittel emerged from the bunch sprint to claim his tenth stage victory. Hats off
to Kittel, as a sprinter he really does cut the mustard.
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