Stage 14 Blagnac / Rodez - Nothing Toulouse

Stage 14 from Blagnac near Toulouse to Rodez commenced with an inspirational quote from Robbie McEwen –“You don't dance on the pedals... ...you smash them”.

Thomas Voeckler was the first to smash the pedals from the flag fall and then took a group of breakies with him including Thomas De Gendt.

And De Ghent pretty much stayed out front for most of the day in a ho-hum kind of a stage in a beautiful part of the world more suited to a casual ride on a tree lined road by the Tarn River on a sunny day than a bike race.

First town the peloton rode through was Grenade that features the old Gothic church of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption and when I hear old Gothic I think of a church that wanders rainy streets in a long black coat at night and goes back to the bedsit to play Sisters of Mercy records...

The peloton rode on through fields of wheat, corn and tournesol. No top marks handed out for field art apart from a tractor made of hay bales – how meta!

Troll DJ was getting restless and couldn’t help but bust out Warren Zevon’s ‘Werewolves of London’. Aruuuuuuuu!!!!

There was some time for interviews with Curious George Bennett and then General Director of the Tour Christian Prudhomme. Prudhomme’s questions were presented in dichotomous format eg wine or cheese? Socks up or socks down? Sunglass arms inside or out of helmet straps? Curiously ‘scrunch or fold?’ was missing from the list.

Tommo and Macca took some time out have a chat with SBS Radio producer and real life French person Christophe Mallet to chat about what the French think of their cyclists.

Apparently they are well regarded and twelve year old Romain Bardet is very popular with the youngsters and kiddies stick pictures of Bardet on their school books along with pics of Wham! and the cast of Neighbours.

Tommo and Macca breathe a sigh of relief when Mallet accompanies them to a restaurant in France because having a French speaker will ensure you don't struggle with the menu and end up with a live octopus delivered to the table.

Meanwhile the Troll DJ must have been bored out of its mind and put together a homage to the Pyrenees vultures and Phil and Paul will be in raptures, or is that raptors?

The Tour choppers soared over the towns and villages of the region and it seems you can have any colour of roof you want in Toulouse so long as it's red. Or you could say they have both kinds of roofs – terra and cotta (thanks to @cinquecento62 from the Couch Peloton for the contribution!)

OMG, there is an Aldi in Albi!

Mattie was commenting on the work teams Sunweb and BMC had been doing up front of the peloton. He noted former BMC rider Taylor Phinney is the son of speed skater Connie Carpenter-Phinney. Not sure how this bit of info was relevant but if Phinney was going to win he’d need to do a Bradbury today...

Some more fun facts about the riders – apparently Chris Froome loves to watch the marathon...

Windows down, eardrums banging, which could either mean a ride from one stage to another in Robbie’s 2CV or just the general din of the caravan of commentary.

But seriously, is there actually ANYTHING going on today? Is there an Aldi in Albi? So many questions.

Alexey Lutsenko was spotted being ‘held together with masking tape’ and it looks budget cuts are really hurting in the Astana team which puts all the more pressure on Fabio Aru to stay in yellow to collect enough prize money for proper bandages.

24 km to the finish and the winds had sprung up and the darling of France Warren Barguil had worked up a thirst. The wait to collect a water bottle from the team car was as long as queuing for a drink at a music festival. Finally the team car did pull up and he was off, in the words of Robbie, “with a bunch of bidons stuffed down his shirt like Santa Claus”.

Thomas De Ghent powered on in his trademark Thomas De Ghent Engine style in the house of pain until the inevitable catch.

This time Sky was setting the pace at 10 km to and Aru’s slim hold on yellow was slipping away.

In the uphill sprint in Rodez ‘the boy from Canberra’ Michael Matthews lit up an otherwise boring stage to beat golden boy Greg Van Avermaet to the line and claim is second ever Tour win.

Chris Froome reclaimed the golden fleece leading Aru by 18 seconds. Not a big lead and if Froome is intent on taking yellow all the way to Paris he really has...

...nothing Toulouse.

Stage 8 Pau / Bagnères-de-Luchon - The Hare of the Dog

Stage 8 and day two of the Tour’s weekend adventure in the Pyrenees for a tough 184 km in the saddle from Pau to Bagnères-de-Luchon.

Gabs had a lovely dessert in mind to mark the first week of the Tour with apricots and peaches poached in wine. But wait, no butter! Gabs, you made a good start in the early days of the Tour but you can’t just go for a few days without ‘the butter’ and make a token gesture with 20g here and 20g there and expect us not to notice. We want to see a big show of the butter in the coming week.

Before racing got under way, Paul gave his thoughts on the stage. He thinks it’s one to separate the “men from the boys”. Robbie had a more bucolic view and said it was one to separate, “the wheat from the chaff”.

By the way, Robbie should do the ‘Ask Robbie’ on camera segment by opening an envelope like they did in Ask the Leyland Brothers.

There’s an adage that goes something along the lines of ‘between a conspiracy and a stuff-up it’s usually a stuff-up'. Investigations into ‘Kitegate’ revealed this wasn’t the result of a lone-wolf trying to sabotage the Tour. Turns out a hapless spectator got the power cord caught in a belt and unplugged the machine that blows air into the arch to keep it up. Mr Bean. Can’t take him anywhere.

Tour Director Christian Prudhomme apologised profusely and said Adam Yates, who ended up receiving a number of stitches in his chin, was ‘elegant’ about the whole incident.

Prudhomme announced that security would be beefed up around the flamme rouge arch machine. Since Gabriel Gate’s gendarme brother Francois is no longer with us, the army is sending a hand-picked elite team of the toughest Legionnaires instead.

Out on the road there was no early breakaway. On the first big climb of the day, T-bone Pinot was determined to pick up the KOM points on the hors categorie Col de Tourmalet. There was a big turnout of spectators and the cafe on the corner of the climb was charging prices that’d make baby Jesus cry.

Once over the summit of Col de Tourmalet, the riders descended at break-neck speed on roads that look like knock-yourself-out-stupid fun. Robbie and Mattie recounted the time Tour boundary rider The Jensie crashed out after hitting an ‘invisible bump’.

The latest from the rumour mill is that Alberto Contador will go to Trek-Segafredo but The Jensie doesn’t think so.

There was a startling development in the ongoing mystery of ‘Gantrygate’ from the opening stage of the 2013 Tour. Robbie confessed to being on the Orica-GreenEDGE bus that hit the gantry.

Let’s put it this way. If I was the boss of a bus company I’d be hesitant about giving Robbie a job as a driver, particularly in South Melbourne in the vicinity of the Montague Street bridge.

Still, the mystery remains - was Robbie the ‘magic bullet’ in the OGE bus incident? Might write a book about that.

Robbie was talking about how riders stay hydrated when they’re racing. He cautioned that, “when you start on the coke, there’s no stopping”.

Assessing a cat. one climb.

From the ‘Ask Robbie’ mailbag, he fielded a question about how do they categorise the climbs? Robbie explained it was all done with spirit levels and protractors. Really? That’s not what I was told. You see, they get a bunch of cats to wander up the climbs and they rate them when they’re done. Now if the cats can’t be arsed with a climb they just rate them as hors categorie, even though they don’t know what it means.

Robbie noticed, “the strap around the chest of Mikel Landa”. Look, we don’t want to know.

Second question from the mailbag was why do riders appear to open up the brakes on a climb? Well, you see it’s all to do with rim rub...OK, I think we’re done Robbie.

A big mountain stage like today can bring some surprise attacks, even the clouds lurking behind the mountains are known to spring a thunderstorm with no warning. Mattie noted the work of the Skybots around, “number one protected man, Chris Froome” Does he get taken up hill in an Armaguard van?

Mattie and Robbie were inevitably caught by Phil and Paul. Paul said, “the Tour de France leapfrogs to Rio de Janeiro in August”, so clearly the race isn’t ending in Paris this year.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of Paul, has anyone else noticed his obsession with practicing water sports?

On the final climb of the day, the Col de Peyresourde, Sergio Henao (you know the rest) was guiding Chris Froome to the summit. In a move no one saw coming, Froome launched himself from the summit adopting a ‘hareodynamic’ position and took off like a dog that just stole a link of sausages from the butchers shop.

Paul thought Froome, “has thrown caution to the wind and tactics out the window”. The Jensie reacted with, “crafty move, talk about British understatement”. Spot on Paul and Jensie, that was one hell of a descent and it was enough to secure a stage win and the golden fleece from the shoulders of GVA.

In the post race wrap-up Robbie was understandably wowed by Froome but warned, “riding on the tube top, don’t try this at home kids”.

ME: *drops mic*

Stage 14 Rodez / Mende – Who Listens to the Race Radio?

Stage 14 took the peloton on a sightseeing tour through the gorgeous gorges of the River Tarn on a 178.5 km route where the riders landed on an airfield of all places at the finish.

Over in the kitchen Gabs kicked back a little on a Saturday afternoon with some slow cooking. Beef stew with olives and fennel was on the menu which had the peloton wondering why they were being served a winter dish in the middle of summer. For Gabs anytime is a good excuse for a stew.

No butter and the buerremetric counter sits on 200g but there’s some Pernod and a reasonable slug of red wine that goes into the pot. It was going to take hours to cook and now the cork was out of the bottle Gabs wasn’t going to have the wine turn to vinegar by the time the stew was ready to serve.

As the peloton took in the sights Paul remarked that the gorge is known for its ‘cave dwelling fauna’ and we weren’t quite sure if he was referring to the 23 species of bat that live in the caves or Phil.

The area is also renowned for its vultures and quite a few were spotted today, so many in fact I think I'm going to start a special vulture classification competition ‘Le Vautour de Tour’, subject to Les Vaches du Tour approval of course as I can see a problem already with the acronym.

Some very adventurous or just plain crazy people perfectly timed a bungee jump for the Tour chopper cameras from a platform hanging precariously over the gorge. That was some elastic band eh Phil? Good thing it didn’t snap.

No, not that Sports band

Paul spotted the French President François Hollande who’d come down to watch the race. Paul tried listening in to what he was chatting about with Tour race director Christian Prudhomme. Nothing about the potential of a Grexit or local politics, just how the top blokes in the GC were going. Well, how about that, a head of state discussing the ‘heads of state’.

Hollande was seen getting into the big red car guiding the Tour. Paul thought the French President had the best seat in the house. Phil would disagree because with him it’s always the vultures that have the best seat in the house.

As the race started heating up there was talk of Alberto Contador changing bikes for one with lighter tyres. I’ve witnessed mountain bikers changing tyre pressure mid race but this is getting ridiculous. And what were the tyres filled with, helium?

This may have made sense back in the days when riders raced on steel framed brutes but on today’s light as a feather carbon fibre machines the gains, at best, would be extremely marginal.

There’s also one drawback to consider - a lighter tyre, according to Paul, is more likely to explode. I’m figuring that’s more to do with tyre pressure than the hoops suddenly bursting into flames. And besides, helium isn’t flammable.

A sizable bunch of breakies had been chased by the peloton all day. Mikal Golas, or ‘Goulash’ to Phil and Paul, attacked at around 27km to go. FDJ had being a doing a job of work to get Thibaut Pinot ready for the final tough 3km climb to the airfield.

Pinot joined forces with Romain Bardet but the duo were caught by Stephen Cummings, no not that Stephen Cummings from Aussie band TheSports, but the British guy who rides for MTN-Qhubeka. Cummings rode away to victory as the first rider of an African registered team to have won a stage at the Tour de France and to cap it off on Mandela Day.

Meanwhile further down the road the ‘Furious Five’ were duking it out. Froome held off the other four but Nairo Quintana managed to haul himself up to second place in the GC behind Froome.

The airfield finish was a nice touch. The hard working Tour choppers were able to attend the jersey presos for once!