Stage 9 Nantua / Chambéry - Life's a Biche

Stage 9 and the riders set out on what many regarded as the ‘Queen stage’ of the Tour and the first big hit out for the GC contenders on a huge mountain stage in the Savoie region of the Alps.

Gabs sampled the Savoie fare of the region and he made a bee line for the famous Chartreuse liquor and ginger beer for a Chartreuse mule or two.

Early in the race Robert Gesink and Manuele Mori abandoned after crashing and Mori looked to be in some distress lying on the road clutching his right shoulder. No one wants to see that but sometimes cycling can be a brutal sport.

40 km into the race the riders passed a giant creepy looking hay bale giant and the couch peloton tried to erase the memory before bedtime. Probably a good idea that the young kiddies were already tucked up in bed.

Boundary rider Ant McCrossan interrupted Orica-Scott Directeur Sportif Matt White who had been barking out instructions to the team to get in the solid foods early. What, is Matt feeding babies? I can’t wait to see him nurse a rider back into the race.

A large pack of riders arrived at the first hors categorie climb Col de la Biche and the profile suggested it would be a biche of a climb with an average gradient of 9% over 10.5 km.

Primoz Roglic was first to the top before Bugalugs, Axel Domont and Alexis Vuillermoz on a course that suspiciously looked tailor made for the French AG2R La Mondiale squad. They launched a descent that saw Geraint Thomas crash out of the Tour with a broken collar bone. At least G got to spend a few glorious days in yellow and we wish him a speedy recovery.

Way down the road and the Gruppetto was having another hard day in which a number of riders including Aussie Mark Renshaw and Stage 4 winner Arnaud Demare failed to stay within the cut off time.

With a number of crashes and a thunderstorm for the descent into Chambéry this was shaping up to be a dramatic stage. But it wasn’t all gloom and doom.

Robbie recounted the time he passed The Jensie being wrapped in bandages after a nasty crash at 80km per hour. The bike was cactus and he was given a Mavic neutral service bike. Robbie was later passed by what looked like The Mummy on a bike seven sizes too small speaking with a German accent. I think Robbie’s Jens Voigt impersonation needs a little more work though with a little less channeling of Yoda.

Thomas Voeckler took time out for a cheerio to the couch peloton and the tongue said hi too!

Fashun watch.: Did I see a sleeveless Cofidis rider collecting a bidon from the team car? Maybe he was off to audition for a remake of ‘Rumblefish’. And green rimmed clear glasses to match the Kermit green Cannondale Drapac kit?

Items of jewelry didn't escape the eyes of Matt and Robbie. Robbie noted the piece on a chain dangling from the neck of Richie Porte and noted, "the little map of Tassie goes everywhere with Porte".

It looked like more than a full week of commentating was taking a toll on the duo and the rest day couldn't come soon enough. Mattie normally doesn't miss a beat, but  'constemplating' had the couch peloton a little perplexed.

Warren Barguil was the first over the top of the second hors categorie Grand Colombier and back down the valley to be confronted by the imposing Mont du Chat (cat mountain).

The imposing Mont du Chat.

On the monster climb of the hors catogorie Mont du Chat  riders were dropping like flies. Michal Kwiatkowski Kwiatstopski and Bauke Mollema went up in a mushroom cloud.

In the yellow group the hand of Chris Froome shot up indicating a mechanical but Fabio Aru attacked, a real no-no in cycling etiquette. Oh dear, this was going to be really awkward for the Sardinian at the dinner table that evening. If Aru hadn't got the message yet he certainly did from a little dig from Froome and at that moment he was probably looking for a rock to crawl under.

The big question on the mind of Mattie of all the riders was, "how much left in the tank? E for empty or E for enough?" Alberto Contador looked like his tank was on an empty. Robbie thought Bertie's goose was cooked, well it certainly wasn't steak.

'Narrow' Quintana's chances for a Paris podium finish looked slimmer as he started falling back from the yellow group.

If reaching the summit wasn't difficult enough there was a long, tricky take-no-prisoners descent down Mont du Chat to Chambéry.

Richie Porte ran off the road in a horrible crash flew across the road collecting Dan Martin. In an instant Porte's Tour was over and the couch peloton was left speechless. A broken hip and collarbone is bad enough but it could have been so much worse.

At the bottom of the descent the twelve year old Romain Bardet got himself out front and the chase was on with the yellow group of Froome, Jakob Fuglsang, Aru and Rigoberto Uran.

Uran had a problem with his derailleur and with the help of a French McGyver from Mavic neutral service was able to go on only in fixie mode since the shifter was stuffed.

Bardet was caught a little over 2km to go from his AG2R home base in and in a sprint to the finish Uran pipped Barguil on the line.

A great win for the Colombian but there was more drama than one can take in one hit.

The rest day never looked so good.

Stage 4 Mondorf-les-Bains / Vittel - Vittel not to be for Kittel

Stage 4 and the riders rolled out of Mondorf-les-Bains on the 207km ‘transitional stage’ through the beautiful Lorraine region to the town of Vittel.

We’ve come to know’ transitional stage’ to mean ‘boring AF’with long flat roads and a bunch sprint at the end. But the sun was out and finally started to feel like summer.

Right from the start Wanty-Group Gobert’s Guillaume Van Keirsbulck went out on a solo ‘suicide breakaway’ with the peloton happy to let him go. Robbie and Keeno explained that being a new comer to the tour (Wanty-Group Gobert secured a wild card entry) the Belgian team would have lots of  TV time and free advertising. That’s one explanation, perhaps Van Keirsbulck just wanted to be first to the post-race massage table.

Back in the kitchen Gabs was baking Nancy’s chocolate cake (we must thank Nancy for the recipe). The recipe calls for 125g of butter so I’ve brought back the buerremetric counter to record a total of 935g of butter so far this Tour.

But being the 4^th July American cuisine was the order of the day, so out came the burgers and hotdogs which was a blessed relief from the 2 minute noodles of the day before. I was surprised to hear that Matt and Robbie are not fed by Gabs but by caterers of US broadcaster NBC.

And while we’re on the topic of food and drink, Robbie described the ‘Karotewasser’ of the Lorraine region. Apparently this rather strange practice dated back to medieval times where knights errant would dunk the local porous carrots into black tea. Mate, I think someone on Wikipedia or in Russia is having a lend of you Robbie, FAKE NEWS!!!

Speaking of carrots, Robbie waxed lyrical about the ‘crash carrots’ of the now defunct Basque Euskaltel Euskadi team, famous for their bright orange jerseys and habit of spending more time off the bike sprawled across the road than actual racing. Because of this it was safer to have them behind you than in front.

Later in the stage Matt and Robbie revealed which Tour riders they pretended to be when they were children (yes, really). Obviously an Euskaltel Euskadi rider was not one of them.

Sagz be like.

Troll DJ was busting out the tunes and The Smiths 'This Charming Man' was an obvious choice. Sadly, my request for Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Have You Ever Seen Lorraine?’ went unanswered.

Later Troll DJ was trolled itself by a roadside random dad band belting out The White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army’. Nice one dads.

There were no new McKeenanisms of note but as nod to the Sherliggetts Matt dropped a 'job of work' describing the massive restoration effort on Toul's Cathedral of Saint-Etienne in the 1980s.

It wouldn't be the Tour without the famous fields of sunflowers and at 89km to we had our first sighting of the tournesol, which happened to be right near a huge solar panel power station. Well I’ll be, a tournesolar power station!

Time seemed to be today’s theme, which appeared to just drag on. There was some impressive clock field art which also featured a tractor, combine harvester and sheep followed up by the vary impressive ‘calendar château’ of Château de Haroué in Nancy with its 365 windows, 52 fireplaces etc. (Robbie challenged the couch peloton to guess how many chimneys).

The riders approached the home of bottled water and Tour sponsor Vittel. I wonder just how much Vittel paid for the naming rights for the town of Vittel?

Van Keirsbulck was inevitably caught by the peloton after his huge solo effort at 16km to go, then it was time for the sprinters to get organised for the charge into Vittel.

Robbie cautioned about the hazards of a narrow departmental roads and potholed arse-fault on the shoulder. He added, "there's a real bottle neck in the centre of Vittel". We saw what you did there Robbie.

A crash within 2km to the finish saw current yellow jersey holder Geraint Thomas hit the deck. Fortunately he was okay, not so for Mark Cavendish who was elbowed into the barrier by Peter Sagan. 

Frenchman Arnaud Demare emerged victorious, Cavendish withdrew with a broken shoulder blade and in a dramatic decision that will divide cycling fans for years to come (on social media anyway), Sagz was kicked out of the Tour.

Whoever said transitional stages were boring?