Stage 5 of the Tour kicked off under sunny skies but a cloud
of controversy over yesterday’s disqualification of Peter Sagan over that elbow
knock to Mark Cavendish. Perhaps for the Manx Missile it was a bit of ‘what
goes around, comes around’ with his history of playing rough in the sprint.
Many fans and commentators were of the opinion that Sagz should have been disqualified for the stage
but not kicked out of the Tour altogether.
The takeaway from all this folks is just don’t play rough in
the sprint, someone’s going to catch you one day.
While we’re on the topic of takeaway, Robbie and Mattie were
still fielding questions about how riders answer the call of nature. Again,
without too much information, they explained what Mattie called a ‘takeaway
nature break’, the nature break you take without stopping. I guess that makes
sense when you order a coffee to go.
From the start an eight rider breakaway got away including
seasoned riders Edvald Boasson Hagen, birthday boy Philippe Gilbert, Thomas De
Gendt and ‘French housewives’ favourite’ Thomas Voeckler.
Jan Bakelants was in the breakaway too and much had been
made of derogatory comments he made about podium women prior to the Tour. He apologised
for the remarks but he won’t be able to play it down for some time yet.
Interestingly I seemed to keep hearing Matt and Robbie call him ‘Bugalugs’. I’ll
pay that, from now on its Jan Bugalugs.
As the peloton passed through Saint-Loupe-Sur-Semouse,
Mattie noted it’s claim to fame was furniture production, hence the town is
known as the ‘city of furniture’, not to be confused with ‘cities of road
furniture’, which is just about everywhere else in Europe.
Ad watch: by now it’s hard to escape the Skoda ad doing the
rounds (it’s a major sponsor of the Tour de France). At first we thought it was
clever, playing on the car company’s slogan ‘simply clever’. It features the
co-inventor of wifi pondering who was behind inventions and innovations such as
the traffic light and who came up with roasting coffee beans. It’s starting to
wear thin by now and I have a question - annoying ads on high rotation, who was
the inventor?
From what I’ve heard these Skodas are pretty good and maybe
it’s time for Robbie to ditch the old Citroen – all Mattie could smell on the
long steep drive up to La Planche des Belle Filles was clutch.
Fabio Aru opens up on La Planche des Belles Filles
Troll DJ had been a little quiet, suggesting the Spotify
subscription had run out. Once again my request went unanswered, that being anything
by Elbow...
At the intermediate sprint Boasson Hagen got the points,
which was wonderful.
It wasn’t long before the riders were, according to Mattie, "getting
their tickets ready for business class at the pointy end".
Thomas Voeckler grabbed a bidon from the team car to cool
off and performed all his checks for take-off;
Sunnies?
Check.
Gel?
Check.
Tongue?
Check.
Philippe Gilbert was enjoying his birthday breakaway and as
the group headed uphill ‘blew out the candles and went for the cake’ taking
Bugalugs with him.
Inevitably the attacks came and riders where being dropped
left right and centre. The Skybots reeled in Bugalugs and Gilbert and with a
quick hug their day was done.
At 2.4km to go Fabio Aru launched his attack with Chris
Froome, Dan Martin, the twelve year old Romain Bardet and our own Richie Porte
hot on his heels.
Aru proved too strong and soloed to his first Tour stage
victory. The Sardinian couldn’t contain his huge smile and according to
Mattie had his, “mouth wide open like a flip-top head for a toothbrush
commercial”.
Geraint Thomas handed over the golden fleece to fellow
Skybot Froome and Porte moved up to fifth.
No doubt Froome will be doing everything to stay in yellow
all the way to Paris but it’s early days and there are many more battles to
come.
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