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 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 7 L'Isle-Jourdain / Lac de Payolle - Cummings Escapes Arch Rivals to Solo Win

Stage 7 and the Tour has reached the Pyrenees for a weekend in the mountains. At 162.5 km the route was shorter than what the peloton had become accustomed too but factor in the climbs and it’s still a long day in the saddle.

Over in the hot Tour kitchens Gabs was preparing a ‘comforting French winter dish’ of lamb and bean casserole. A bit unusual in the middle of summer in the south of France but Gabs thought a hearty dish would help the riders get through the mountains.

At last, the buerremetric counter made a move from back in stage 3 with the addition of 20g of butter taking it to 540g. Looks like the online petition from the peloton worked this time.

Out on the road and the 12 man early breakaway carrying Peter Sagan and Mark Cavenish was eventually reeled in by the peloton at the 43 km mark.

As we were joined by the caravan of commentary team Matt Keenan and Robbie McEwen, the riders passed what looked like a hot air balloon getting ready for lift off. Finally, a real hot air balloon you can throw out the sandbags from to gain height! On closer inspection it turned out to be not a hot air balloon just Phil and Paul doing their commentary warm up.

Being a Friday afternoon the staff from French TV were staggering about and rather clumsily pouring out glasses of wine for themselves and for the commentary and media teams assembled at the finish. Robbie was tempted but thought he might have a quite vino or two after the race. Best to lay off the booze at that time of day, things were already getting a bit messy out there and there’d already been an ugly incident over at the Eurosport commentary caravan.

Troll DJ turned on the music busting out the classic ‘Bicycle Race’. What? It’s the Queen stage already? That’s usually reserved for the final week of the Tour.

Robbie and Mattie were chewing the fat over how many of the riders in the peloton speak English. Robbie thought it would be most, except for Tony Martin, “who doesn’t speak much in any language” but is, “fluent in 54-11”. Enough said.

Just before Robbie and Mattie were caught the peloton passed a field art bicycle with a back wheel that imploded when it came into view of the Tour chopper.

Phil and Paul made their catch at 4 km earlier than on previous stages so they must have either had the hammer down or melting ‘arsephalt’ slowed Robbie and Mattie down.

Paul saw an old abbey that was once badly damaged during the French Revolution but had been ‘severely’ reconstructed. Not sure about that Paul, it didn’t look like the work of brutalist architects from here.

Phil and Paul were anticipating a battle between the GC contenders on the final climb of the day on the ‘slopes of the S bend’. Paul was particularly worried about a sharp corner on the Col d’S bend, but bends don’t have corners, oh never mind.

A large leading group of 29 men had formed and at 39 km to go Matti Breschel, Antoine Duschesne and Dani Navarro popped out the front of the now splintered group, which Phil called the ‘three carrots’. There was some misty-eyed reminiscing about the now defunct Team Carrot but fortunately the trio didn’t crash out.

The carrot reference may have meant they were the carrot to a hungry chasing bunch of donkeys. It was clear from Tour boundary rider Jens Voigt that there was no stick driving the peloton, however, the Skybots were ‘burning matches’.

The collapse of the flamme rouge deflates the spirit of the peloton.

Steve Cummings made his way up to the carrots and took of rather suddenly at 27km to go. Was the move reckless? All the carrots had to say was, “this is really something”.

The chase was on from Vincenzo Nibali, GVA, Dani Navarro and Daryl Impey. Cummings ascended the Col d’S bend minus the sandbags and it was soon apparent there was no way this fish would be reeled in.

Further down the slopes Phil saw Dominico, ‘Pots of Eno’, ‘Pots of Evo’ (we suspect Phil may have had one or two glasses of vino) make a little move, and thanks to Phil, Dominico Pozzovivo is now clearly ahead of Vincenzo Nibali in the how-many-ways-can-we-mangle-a-surname competition.

As Cummings soloed to the finish, Paul said, ‘the champagne will be in short supply”. Yeah, we kind of figured that judging from the commentary.

Steve Cummings crossed the line and what a ride! He knows not to throw stones but certainly knows when it’s time to throw out the sandbags.

It wasn’t time to celebrate on the dregs of the champagne yet, the rest of the riders had to come home and just as Adam Yates from OBE (ORICA-BikeExchange) approached the 1 km to go flamme rouge inflatable arch, it punctured, causing Yates to chute leaving his face bleeding.

Chaos ensued as the peloton tried to work its way through the flaccid arch like it was some kind tactile interactive art installation.

The motos stopped to lend a hand, God knows when neutral service would show up and we all know how hopelessly slow they are at dealing with punctures.

Until race organisers launch an investigation we can only speculate on what caused the red kite to deflate. Was it a stone or a piece of glass? Was it a simple case of the generator running out of petrol? No, blame it on the EU, it gets blamed for particularly everything else.

The couch peloton drew comparisons with the infamous OGE (Orica-GreenEDGE) bus incident back in stage 1 of the 2013 Tour de France which featured in the very first edition of Le Wrap. Makes you wonder about what it is with OGE/OBE and gantries/red kites at or near the finish line.

Stage 3 Granville / Angers - A Slow Day in the Office

Stage 3 and the Tour headed south from Granville in Normandy on a 223 km ride to Angers in the Loire Valley.

Over in the Tour kitchen Gabs prepared a delightful strawberry tart with pistachio nuts. There’s no butter in the actual recipe, however it calls for sweet pastry. There are lots of recipes out there for a basic sweet pastry dough. Don’t skimp on the butter and NEVER reach for the margarine!

Gabs still had some delicious Normandy butter in the pantry and for his sweet pastry dough went for a full block which takes the buerremetric counter to 520g, an impressive amount at this early stage of the Tour.

Oh, and did I mention there’s a good slug of Cointreau in the recipe?

Out on the parcours riders took it slow like it was an unofficial rest day, except for a plucky Armindo Fonseca who rode off the front like a man possessed from the drop of the flag.

Back in the caravan of commentary Mattie and Robbie dissected Richie Porte’s disastrous stage 2 puncture. Bad luck or bad management? Robbie agreed it was a bit of both. With no teamie at hand he was left without a bike to swap, which, ideally, is what you want.

In an ideal world Richie Porte would have had a clone beside him to hand over his bike when he punctured. This normally wouldn’t be a problem for the Yates twins, except Adam’s brother Simon is sitting out a suspension.

Robbie gave some insights into the raison d'être of the dedicated feed zone. He explained it was easier on the domestiques who would otherwise be collecting ‘suitcases’ of feedbags from team cars out on the road.

Andre Greipel loads up at the feed zone.

Out on the road the pace of the peloton was slow, so slow in fact they were in danger of being passed by a bunch of grade F club riders, including the guy who popped off the back. It was getting a bit ho-hum.

Robbie was so bored he had to reprise the story of the Tinkie team mate eating Alberto Contador's in-sole. Turns out it wasn’t the Devil after all, just a hard working domestique ‘taking one for the team leader’.

Fortunately there was plenty of roadside and field art to take the edge off the boredom. Apart from a bicycle constructed from giant pink marshmallows, there was a bovine painted up as the French flag, which is known as a TriCOWlore.

Robbie was asked his favourite ‘race’ of cow, which he replied “the 250 metres”. It’s not race but breed of cow and as it turns out Robbie is partial to a fine looking Limousin - and not one on four wheels.

Robbie gathered round the couch peloton for a story about the time he won a Limousin cow and then sold it to none other than five times Tour winner Bernard Hinault!

A bit of rumour mill news. John Degenkolb is set to go to Trek-Segafredo. Bling is set to go to Giant-Alpecin, which is a natural move to a team sponsored by a shampoo company.

It’s also rumoured wherever Peter Sagan goes after he’s finished with the Tinkies, he’s pretty much guaranteed a lifetime’s supply of Specialized bikes. Being world champ, Specialized is hoping Sagan will do for the brand what Michael Jordan did for a certain brand of sneakers, except the kids won’t be wearing little bicycles on their feet of course.

Back to the race and ‘French housewives’ choice’ Thomas Voeckler decided to come on out of the peloton for a bit of Tommie’s TeeVee Time to show off his mad gurning skillz.

We understand Voeckler is also very vocal in the peloton and a cheeky Troll DJ blew the dust of The Who album Tommy to give ‘Tommy, Can You Hear Me?’ a spin.

Before Mattie and Robbie were caught by Phil and Paul at 45 km to go, Robbie gave a little lesson in some of the race rules. One of them, in a nod to the environment, is about littering. If you drop an empty gel or snack bar wrapper the penalty is half an hour of picking up papers under the supervision of the yard duty teacher.

Phil and Paul counted down the remaining miles of the stage as the peloton finally woke up and realised they’d better get organised for the sprint.

Boundary rider Jens Voigt joined in for a chat as the pace picked up as the peloton snaked its way around the traffic furniture and cray roundabouts.

Fonseca and Voeckler hung on as long as they could in the slim hope they would make it to the line but were inevitably swallowed up by the pack at around 8 km to go.

In the end it was Mark Cavendish by a nose over ‘The Gorilla’ Andre Greipel. The Manx Missile made it Tour stage win number 28, equalling Bernard Hinault’s number of victories. Who said Cav’s best days as a sprinter were behind him?

Oh, and can Hinault interest Cav in a Limousin cow?