Stage 5 Limoges / Le Lioran - GVA FTW

After four days on flat roads, the riders got their first taste of the mountains in the Massif Central on the stage 5 216 km route from Limoges to Le Lioran.

In the Tour kitchen Gab’s prepared duck fillet with porcini mushrooms and green peppercorn sauce. Er, Gabs, I’ve run a few checks over the recipe and no butter – again. What happened to the supply from Normandy? Have you been secretly gnawing away on the butter all this time? ‘Year of the butter.’ Yeah, maybe for YOU Gabs!!!

Robbie dashed to the caravan of commentary after catching up with Tomo. Robbie described the ‘arsephalt’ surface of the road as being a bit rough.

The temperature had been steadily rising all morning and Robbie confessed that he would have liked a dip in a creek and a nanna-nap on the grass on a hot day when he was racing.

That may have been you Robbie put the nine man early breakaway wasn’t taking this stage lying down.

Andriy Grivko, Rafal Majka, Cyril Gautier, Greg Van Avermaet, Serge Pauwels, Bartosz Huzarski, Thomas De Gendt, Romain Sicard and Florian Vachon built a lead on a peloton happy to sit back while the breakies knocked themselves out. The lead bunch split again with Greg, Grivko and De Gendt taking off up the road.

At around 73 km to go GVA, Grivko and De Gendt had built a 15 minute lead and wondered if the peloton had stopped for a quick dip in the creek and a nanna-nap. It was clear the breakaway would survive but there was some tough climbing ahead.

Phil and Paul caught Robbie and Mattie at about 50km to go. Phil looked at the geography of the Massif Central and worried about the 6 million year old puys or extinct volcanoes rumbling back to life during the stage. Paul reassured Phil that, “there are ‘happy geologists’ taking a look at the plugs of extinct volcanoes.” Let’s hope they don’t pull any.

Paul was more concerned with the ‘heavy’ roads of the region slowing down the bikes. Perhaps they should have been made from lighter arsephalt?

The Skybots turn the tables on the Moviestars

At 35km to go the peloton, sensing it’d better hurry up or fall outside the cut-off time, stepped on the gas led by the Moviestars, who gave the Skybots a very Hollywood slap in the face.

Grivko couldn’t hang on to GVA and De Gendt on the climb of the Puy Mary. Back in the peloton Peter Sagan cracked and kissed goodbye to yellow as he was dropped. Sagan was still smiling for the cameras, or was he hiding a grimace?

A stage like today can be pretty tough for a sprinter and Paul noted of the climbs, “if we were in a hot air balloon we’d be throwing out the sandbags to get height”. We’ll be needing to turn off the hot air if we ever want to get back down again.

The Skybots turned the tables on the Moviestars giving them a slap or two. Meanwhile Julian Alaphilippe, (currently second in the GC standings) was, in the classic words of Paul, “fighting with his machine.”

Paul said GVA had 'a job in hand' to get the yellow jersey but he got the better of De Gendt and soloed away on the Col de Perthus. The ‘magnet of the maillot juane’ drew him ever closer to the finish. There was one tricky right hand turn that, according to Phil, if you didn’t make it you’d “go in for the full on barbecue”, but GVA went on to win the stage and slip on the golden fleece for the first time.

You could say it was a massif win for GVA, and on a sprayed BMC bike too. Previously, as Phil noted, the BMC team had ridden naked carbon.

Stage 8 Rennes / Mûr-de-Bretagne - Merde Britannia

Stage 8 of the Tour and it was a Saturday night in Australia. I finally got to see a stage including the pre-match entertainment as opposed to rushing in during the week only to see Matthew Keenan get caught by the Ps.

Part of the pre-match entertainment for the night on SBS was Monty Python’s Best Bits. I can’t think of a more appropriate segue into the Tour.

Off to the kitchen and no visit to Brittany would be complete without crêpes so Gabs treated the riders to Brittany crêpes with strawberries. The recipe calls for double cream in a strawberries and cream reference to Wimbledon going on across the Channel. I saw what you did there Gabs!

There’s 2 teaspoons or about 10g of butter so the buerremetric counter edges up to 120g.

Phil and Paul gave us a rare up close and personal look at the commentary caravan. I see they’re still using the 486s held together with duct tape. I know budgets are tight at SBS but come on, lap tops and tablets are pretty cheap these days.

The commentary caravan looked like it had a bit of a tidy up and noticed the cassoulet bowls had been well hidden.

Team Katusha Rockets started the day one man down after Luca Paolini tested positive for cocaine. A very cheeky Troll DJ couldn’t help him/herself and had to play ‘White Lines’ by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mell. Anymore positive tests for illicit substances Troll DJ will need to pull out the Del-Lords ‘When the DrugsKick In.'

Early on in the race breakaways Bartosz Huzarski, Sylvain Chavanel, Romain Sicard (this time on Oooropcar TV duty) and Pierre-Luc Périchon made their escape. The hunt was on and 17 riders went on the chase after the intermediate sprint. They were caught at 69 km to go when Huzarski escaped again with Lars Bak and Michal Golas.

Huzarski eventually surrendered and the last two breakies Bak and Golas were swallowed up by the hungry pack at 8 km to go.

The moment the breakies realise they've been caught

I always wonder about the motivation of a breakaway - dare to dream or TV time for the team sponsor? Probably a bit of both really.

The field art award of the day went to the hay bale bike construction with moving horsie wheels. Nice nod to the racing industry even though PMU isn’t sponsoring the green jersey anymore.

Just like with the Mur de Huy Paul was having trouble with the pronunciation of Mûr-de-Bretagne, the final climb to the finish. He settled on ‘Manure-de-Britannia.’ I’m also hoping Phil pulls himself up the next time he calls Brittany ‘Britannia’ with a “Oops!...I did it again.”

It wasn’t just pronunciation that caused problems. Phil spotted Tony Greipel in the pack. OK, fair enough Martin and Greipel are German. The Jensie got tangled up in a Jensieism of his own and called Dan Martin ‘Dean Martin.’

I must confess I do have difficulties with riders who share the same first name but also have a first name as a surname with an ‘s’ on the end. Yes, I’m looking at you Roger Matthews and Matthew Michaels.

No such problems with the Yates twins Simon and Adam. They look the same, ride on the same team, the first names are interchangeable really.

Down at the business end of the day R2D2 C3PO La Mondiale’s Alexis Vuillermoz made his intentions known on the climb of the Mûr-de-Bretagne, but Chris Froome wasn’t having any of that leaving Nibs in his wake. Dean Martin left his attack a little too late and the former mountain biker Vuillermoz rode away to take his first Tour victory and a win for France.