Stage 13 Saint-Girons / Foix - Christmas in July

Stage 13 and it was going to be the shortest stage in the saddle barring the individual time trials for the 101 km from Girons to Foix in the Pyrenees.

Tour organisers had been listening to calls from fans and commentators for shorter stages with full gas racing, so they’ve taken a leaf out of the cricket book and went with a Twenty20 style experiment, you know, with fireworks, music, dancing, colourful costumes and...oh hang on, cycling already has that.

The riders were lead out of Saint-Girons by the big red car. Jakob Fuglsang’s left arm was bandaged up and he was riding hands off the handlebars which wasn’t got a good sign since you can’t really climb without hands on the bars.

The flag dropped, Frenchmen Warren Barguil and Thomas Voeckler were off like scolded cats in a "go until you blow" effort according to Robbie.

The attacks started coming and Barguil and Voeckler were hauled back after 10 km of racing.

Sylvain Chavanel, Philippe Gilbert and Alessandro De Marchi got out front and Chavanel collected the maximum intermediate sprint points.

Arthur Vichot hoisted up the white flag abandoning the Tour. After a great first week in which Arnaud Demare took stage 4 and led in the points competition, FDJ was reduced to a shadow of itself with just four riders remaining.

The Tour choppers were back in the air after the unscheduled chopper rest day and brought us magnificent breathtaking pictures of the Pyrenees. The choppers were also on Pyrenenean vulture watch in case they started circling any stragglers in the Gruppetto. Two vultures were spotted soaring high above the valleys and Phil and Paul must have been going berserk out the back of the NBC catering truck.

De Marchi was first over the top of the Col de Latrape. Back down the road Barguil attacked in the yellow jersey group and, Mikel Landa and Alberto Contador followed.

Landa looked to be riding for Landa again and some of that old Bertie El Pistolero spirit was back to try and get a stage win.

Speaking of Bertie what was with his bottle cage with the chop-top bidon? A packet of biscuits? For some reason Robbie suggested it was tin foil. Perhaps it was just a blanket he could throw over the riders up front.

So much was going on in the race and Mattie declared that, "not even Nostradamus would dare to predict a winner". Well yeah, there’s that and the fact that he’s dead.

Twenty20 cycling comes to Paris

On the second climb of the day Landa and Bertie dropped De Marchi with Nairo Quintana in pursuit. Mikel went Rogue Landa when it became apparent he wasn’t working for Froome anymore and got a sniff of yellow.

SBS commentator Henk Vogels turned up for official Tour duties and Tweeted, “Love the short stages , real bike racing none of this controlled BS , love a filth stage’. FILTH STAGE!!! HENK IS BACK!!!

The winner of the Criterium du Dauphine Jakob Fuglsang abandoned the Tour after trying to ride up mountains with no hands became too much for him. This meant team leader Fabio Aru was on his own now to try and fend of Landa’s tilt at the golden fleece.

The final climb was the brutally steep goat track Mur de Péguère or ‘Wall of Péguère’ which must have felt like a wall of purgatory to the Gruppetto. Quintana and Barguil reached Bertie and Landa albeit at snail’s pace. The track narrowed so far that even the neutral service motos had trouble getting through. Any mechanical problems and neutral service drones would need to be deployed to drop in spares.

Barguil reached the top of the Mur de Péguère, then passed the Fidler on the Camping Car Roof.

Back down the road and Froome dog looked to be in a whole lot of trouble, or maybe he was foxing? ‘Boring’ Curious George Bennett was anything but boring and Aru stuck like glue to Froome.

‘Voldemort’ (no not that Voldemort, Lance) Rigoberto Uran was stirring up the yellow group and somehow remained, “almost unseen in the brightest kit".

The yellow group crested the Mur de Péguère and it was on for young and old with constant attacks on the descent and all the way to Foix.

Barguil crossed the line and got the win every French man, women and child desires on Bastille Day.

In the battle for GC Froome finished 6 seconds behind the Italian national champion and I bet there were some words for Rogue Landa in the Skybus later.

Aru was presented with his second yellow jersey and right now, in Mattie’s words, "Fabio Aru has got more presents under the tree than anybody else".

It must be Christmas in July.

Stage 5 Vittel / La Planche des Belles Filles - Aru All Smiles

Stage 5 of the Tour kicked off under sunny skies but a cloud of controversy over yesterday’s disqualification of Peter Sagan over that elbow knock to Mark Cavendish. Perhaps for the Manx Missile it was a bit of ‘what goes around, comes around’ with his history of playing rough in the sprint. Many fans and commentators were of the opinion that Sagz should have been disqualified for the stage but not kicked out of the Tour altogether.

The takeaway from all this folks is just don’t play rough in the sprint, someone’s going to catch you one day.

While we’re on the topic of takeaway, Robbie and Mattie were still fielding questions about how riders answer the call of nature. Again, without too much information, they explained what Mattie called a ‘takeaway nature break’, the nature break you take without stopping. I guess that makes sense when you order a coffee to go.

From the start an eight rider breakaway got away including seasoned riders Edvald Boasson Hagen, birthday boy Philippe Gilbert, Thomas De Gendt and ‘French housewives’ favourite’ Thomas Voeckler.

Jan Bakelants was in the breakaway too and much had been made of derogatory comments he made about podium women prior to the Tour. He apologised for the remarks but he won’t be able to play it down for some time yet. Interestingly I seemed to keep hearing Matt and Robbie call him ‘Bugalugs’. I’ll pay that, from now on its Jan Bugalugs.

As the peloton passed through Saint-Loupe-Sur-Semouse, Mattie noted it’s claim to fame was furniture production, hence the town is known as the ‘city of furniture’, not to be confused with ‘cities of road furniture’, which is just about everywhere else in Europe.

Ad watch: by now it’s hard to escape the Skoda ad doing the rounds (it’s a major sponsor of the Tour de France). At first we thought it was clever, playing on the car company’s slogan ‘simply clever’. It features the co-inventor of wifi pondering who was behind inventions and innovations such as the traffic light and who came up with roasting coffee beans. It’s starting to wear thin by now and I have a question - annoying ads on high rotation, who was the inventor?

From what I’ve heard these Skodas are pretty good and maybe it’s time for Robbie to ditch the old Citroen – all Mattie could smell on the long steep drive up to La Planche des Belle Filles was clutch.

Fabio Aru opens up on La Planche des Belles Filles

Troll DJ had been a little quiet, suggesting the Spotify subscription had run out. Once again my request went unanswered, that being anything by Elbow...

At the intermediate sprint Boasson Hagen got the points, which was wonderful.

It wasn’t long before the riders were, according to Mattie, "getting their tickets ready for business class at the pointy end".

Thomas Voeckler grabbed a bidon from the team car to cool off and performed all his checks for take-off;

Sunnies?

Check.

Gel?

Check.

Tongue?

Check.

Philippe Gilbert was enjoying his birthday breakaway and as the group headed uphill ‘blew out the candles and went for the cake’ taking Bugalugs with him.

Inevitably the attacks came and riders where being dropped left right and centre. The Skybots reeled in Bugalugs and Gilbert and with a quick hug their day was done.

At 2.4km to go Fabio Aru launched his attack with Chris Froome, Dan Martin, the twelve year old Romain Bardet and our own Richie Porte hot on his heels.

Aru proved too strong and soloed to his first Tour stage victory. The Sardinian couldn’t contain his huge smile and according to Mattie had his, “mouth wide open like a flip-top head for a toothbrush commercial”.

Geraint Thomas handed over the golden fleece to fellow Skybot Froome and Porte moved up to fifth.

No doubt Froome will be doing everything to stay in yellow all the way to Paris but it’s early days and there are many more battles to come.

Stage 3 Verviers / Longwy - It's a Longw(a)y to the Top

Stage 3 and the peloton made its way from Verviers, Belgium to arrive on French soil in Longwy via tiny Luxembourg.

At last the sun was out to ease the nerves of the crash-ridden first two stages in the wet.

Gabs took time out to sample the delights of Luxembourg - cakes and fruity Riesling were the order of the day - so much so Gabs neglected to feed the peloton. That might explain the lack of recipes this year and I've all but given up on the buerremetric counter. Needless to say the peloton is not happy and soigneurs have been seen flinging packets of 2 minute noodles to riders at dinner time.

In the caravan of commentary there was time for a bit of Les Vaches du Tour chat although cows have been thin on the ground so far. Keeno made special mention of Wanty-Group Gobert’s resident farmer Frederik Bakaert who was in a six rider breakaway along with perennial grand tour rider Aussie Adam Hansen.

As it turns out Bakaert helped milk NINETY cows before heading to the Tour. Was that all by hand? That’s a lot of cows. Maybe after the Tour he could give the Benny Andersson lookalike in ‘River Cottage Australia’ a hand if the house blows away in a storm.

Robbie’s mail bag time and the first question was what do riders do when they need to answer the call of nature. Without going into too much information he explained that it was better to keep on rolling than come to a complete stop and then have waste energy catching up to the rest of the peloton.

For this reason Robbie thinks it’s a worthwhile skill for a pro-rider to master although he hastened to add you’d want to practice on quite country roads. Yeah fair enough, practicing a rolling nature break is probably not a good idea on a commuter ride through city traffic.

I for one can’t help but think for the rest of the riders with iron bladders who managed to hang on for the whole stage must have been looking forward to a long wee in Longwy.

A big shout out to the French team who bring us the pictures - the new onscreen graphics are bigger so you can properly read the distance to go now. Word has it the overhaul was in response to the deteriorating eyesight of an ageing MAMIL and MAWIL fan base.

Belgians Philippe Gilbert and Greg Van Avermaet where among the favourites to win the hilly stage. Robbie and Matt noted that Greg Van Avermaet was named after American three time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond. Perhaps he parents could have gone one step further and named him Greg LeAvermaet.

In the later stages of the race all the breakies were absorbed with Lilian Calmejane reeled in after going solo at 10km to go.

Before the finish in Longwy the riders faced a 1.6km drag at 5.8% gradient up the Côte des Religieuses. This was where the cream of the punchier riders rose to the top. Richie Porte launched a surprise attack with the help of his BMC teammates but despite current world road race champ Peter Sagan pulling his foot from the pedal in the final uphill sprint, Sagan re-clipped and pipped Aussie Michael Matthews, Dan Martin and Greg LeAvermaet in a thrilling finish.

Sagan notched up Tour stage victory number eight and like Greg LeMond did all those years ago he's cementing his place in Tour history as one of the greats.