Stage 5 Ypres / Arenberg Porte du Hainaut - Exit Froome, Lars Goes BOOM!

Day five commenced in Belgium for the start of stage five in the town of Ypres as the Tour marked the centenary of the beginning of World War I before crossing the border into northern France and finishing at Arenberg Porte du Hainaut.

Meanwhile locavore Gabriel Gate went out trapping rabbits and when he’d caught enough to feed the peloton, he returned to the kitchen to cook them up with that most famous of local ingredients Belgian beer to produce a hearty Flemish Rabbit Carbonnade. The recipe calls for half a tablespoon of butter taking the Beurremetric Counter to 375g.

The 155km route takes in the battlefields of World War I, but the real battle the riders faced was crap weather and nine sectors on lumpy, bumpy, muddy, slimy cobbles totalling 15.4km. The puddles were so deep the riders had to pack snorkels.

Taking on the cobbles

Two sectors of cobbles were removed before the race so if anyone sees cheap driveway paving materials up for sale tell them the locals are really pissed off and want their road back.

This version of Melburn-Roobaix, or ‘The Hell of the Northcote’, promised bone-jarring punishment to body and bike but many of the spills happened before the riders hit the rough stuff. Still,  there were plenty more spills on the cobbles with  Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) somersaulting on his bike and a Moviestar knocking a spectator into a ditch.

The social media was ‘red hot’, according to Paul, with the news of Chris Froome (Sky) abandoning after his second crash of the day. Sad to see the defending champion exit this way. Now he knows how Brazil feels. Curiously, Froome kept his helmet on in the team car. Was he worried about it crashing too?

This stage suited the cobblestone specialists, but factor in riders with very little experience on the ‘pave’ and you have a recipe for chaos. In the words of Paul this was a race about courage and you need suitcases of the stuff to take on wet cobbles.

Troll DJ got into the spirit of the day with ‘Shakin’ All Over’ and cheekily snuck in ‘I See You Baby’. Asstana’s Vincenzo Nibali gave his ass a shake in his determination to hang on to brown, er, yellow, going out on his own without his teammates embracing the philosophy, ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’.

Rui Contador (Mampre-Taxo) looked threatening until he hit a hunger flat and was left ruing the decision not to have that second helping of rabbit stew. The man known as Spartacus, Fabian Cancellara was favourite to win the stage but the day went to Lars Boom (Belkin).

Stage 4 Le Touquet-Paris-Plage / Lille Métropole - The Ministry for Pulling Faces

The Tour bid farewell to a magnificent three days in Britain and the challenge now was how to cross the English Channel to the race back home on French soil.

Last year’s transfer from Corsica to the French mainland saw the riders commandeer every available flying dinghy. No such luck for the riders this time. Swimming the channel covered in pig fat in freezing cold water with a bike strapped to one’s back wasn’t exactly appealing. Fortunately there’s a rail tunnel under the Channel. It was a bumpy ride over 50km of railway sleepers but many riders saw it as good training for the cobbles of stage five.

After three days in Britain the riders were well and truly sick of a diet of Yorkshire pudding, deep fried Mars Bars and flat beer. Gabriel Gate had just the thing waiting as the peloton emerged from the Chunnel - Scallop Mousse with Prawn Sauce. This delicate dish contains no butter in the actual recipe but is saved by the four buttered soufflé moulds. Now you’d want to do this properly, so I’d go for a whole 250g block. This takes the Beurremetric Counter to a healthy 350g.

But it must be remembered the riders are here for a bike race and the day’s 163.5km stage took the riders from the coastal resort town of Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, a popular playground with water sports enthusiasts, to Lille Metropole.

Trekie Andy Schleck was forced to abandon the Tour due that tumble in London the day before involving a spectator trying to take a picture. Some 2.5m spectators came out to watch the Tour’s three days in the UK. Fantastic for Tour organisers but was that too many for the riders? Well, you can’t legislate against the stupidity of spectators but then again we wouldn’t want to see dry stone wall barriers for every future Tour event held in the British Isles – the endless dry stone wall blather from Phil and Paul would just be too much!

Chris Froome (Sky) managed to chute in the first couple of kilometers but Frenchman Thomas Voeckler (Oooooropecar) broke free from the peloton ‘pumping and blowing’, according to Phil. He had a one and half minute lead at one stage until he was caught on the outskirts of Lille. ‘The Ministry for Pulling Faces’ is renowned for his solo breakaways in France, not for national pride but for TV exposure for the team sponsors.

Voeckler smiles for the cameras

Again, this was another day for the sprinters. Alexander Kristoff (Katusha Rocket) gave it a shake but Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) proved too good again making it stage victory number three.

Everyone’s attention has turned to stage five on the cobbles. Cobbles are like a horizontal dry stone walls when you think about it. Phil and Paul are going to be insufferable.

Stage 8 Castres / Ax 3 Domaines – Shut up tongues

Can you believe we’re already a third of the way into Le Tour and have reached the Pyrenees? This can only mean one thing - all eyes have turned to mountain men Froome Dog, Schleck, Contador and Evans for two stages of gruelling climbs.

The stage takes the riders through the highest point of Le Tour on the Col de Pailhères. With fresh memories of the blizzard conditions of the Giro d’Italia, the peloton nervously checked the forecast after realising they hadn’t packed the winter woollies. Conditions were pleasant, but the way the Ps talked about the ascents you’d be forgiven for thinking the peloton was about to conquer Everest.

The parcours winds its way through some breathtaking scenery of mountains, valleys and more gorgeous gorges with the Gorge of St Georges the most gorgeous of them all. Needless to say this wasn’t going to be good cow spotting territory.

In true sporting cliché parlance it's the climbs that separate the men from the boys. Africa was in yellow but it took a  young South American to really put a cat among the pigeons.

Things appeared to be going well for Thomas Voeckler (Team Ooooropcar and interpretative tongue dancing specialist) going on the attack at the 39km to go mark until the mighty Nairo Quintana (Movistar) caught his wheel. The Columbian was on the march having defied a ‘death curse’ all his life, according to Paul. Voeckler saw his chances flag. Pretty soon Quintana had left Voeckler in his wake. The Frenchman  had nothing left except to say “shut up tongue”.

We hadn’t seen Voeckler more upset than the time his tongue turned up as himself at a Thomas Voeckler’s tongue lookalike contest only to be judged runner up to the tongue that did those beer commercials a few years ago.

 

 

Voeckler contemplates what went wrong

Quintana continued his heroic effort but Sky had a long march in mind when it sent out Richie Porte on the final ascent to reel in Quintana and to launch the Froome Dog to the finish. Apart from Froome all the big names failed to fire leaving questions at the backs of our minds about what went wrong. Last year Froome played second fiddle to Sir Braddles. This time the Froome Dog was well and truly let off the leash to take the stage at Ax 3 Domaines and lead the GC.

Today it was Tomo and SBS cycling computer Anthony Tan’s turn for the post-race dissection. We fear the Tan Man may have experienced a software glitch. Facts, figures mixed in with a heavy dose of cliché made Tomo wince more than once over a number of excruciating minutes. Tanny, sometimes you’ve just have to take a leaf from Voeckler’s book and know when to say shut the tongue up.

And it seems Gabriel Gate has been listening to the pleas of the Tour caravan. Today’s dinner was a lovely roast duck leg dish Cuisse deCanard Rôtie aux Pruneaux. The Beurremetric Counter account has officially opened on 1 tablespoon of butter.