Stage 2 and the peloton continued its tour of the Manche ‘departamount’
in Normandy on a slightly lumpy 183 km course between Saint-Lô and
Cherbourg-en-Cotentin.
In the kitchen Gabs prepared a sumptuous scallop mousse with prawn sauce. No butter in the actual recipe, that’s reserved for buttering the soufflé
bowls. Since there was no actual quantity specified may as well go all out and
use the whole block, you can’t be too careful. This takes the buerremetric
counter to 270g.
Being just across the channel from England they cop a fair
bit of precipitation in this part of France and today was no exception.
On the way to the caravan of commentary Robbie McEwen
stopped to have a chat with Tomo. Robbie looked like a drowned rat which had
the couch peloton wondering what he’d been up to all morning. It’s only stage 2
of the Tour and I’m starting to worry about Robbie. Mattie, I’d be keeping him
on a short leash if I were you.
I mean you don’t want Robbie to follow the example of Henk
Vogels who we discovered had been out searching for the ‘filthiest piece of
road.’
The breakaway of Paul Voss, Cesare Benedetti, Vegard Breen and
Jasper Stuyven was on from the get-go in the
soggy conditions. Thank goodness for space-age materials and breathable fabrics
that make modern rain capes, according to Robbie like ‘water off a duck’s back.’
But it didn’t stop there, moist conditions
played havoc with the moto cameras. The Vaseline smeared camera lens look is soooooo
Giro d’Italia.
At the 60km mark Alberto Contador crashed again. This is not
a great start for the Spaniard. But more disturbing was the sight of one of the
Tinkie team mates appearing to eat the in-sole of Contador’s shoe after
retrieving a new one from the team car. Mattie quipped it was a, “late lunch on
the soul of Contador”. Er, maybe putting the Devil on the team roster wasn’t
such a good idea after all.
And just what would Lucifer do when he got to what Robbie
called ‘the Jesus bridge?’ Walk on water? That’s a bridge too far. To me Jesus
bridge is the reaction to a bridge on a tight corner.
It might take a miracle for Porte to get back into the race.
Mattie and Robbie were caught at about 45km to go by Phil
and Paul. Paul spotted a very impressive lighthouse which “can be seen at 90
miles per hour.” That’s one hell of a fast speed boat Paul.
Phil and Paul noted that German rider Tony Martin had stayed
up late to watch Germany play in Euro 2016. They thought he looked a little
tired. Now he knows how Aussie Tour fans feel.
As the peloton approached the finish Paul has appeared to
have gone full Brexit by counting down exclusively in miles to go. He’ll be
bringing out chains and furlongs pretty soon but it is a change from the completely
daft ‘hectometres’.
Back to the race and the peloton eventually bridged the gap
to the four breakies. Hats off to Jasper Stuyven (not ‘Peter Stuyvesant’, you can't say that on television) who’d turned himself inside out to stay at the front
and was caught at just 500 metres (what’s that in furlongs?) to go.
The uphill finish made the stage look more like the finale
to a Spring classic. Indeed classics veteran Alejandro Valverde was in amongst
it along with Julian
Alaphilippe but it was world road race champ Peter Sagan who ended his
three year Tour stage win drought and claimed the golden fleece for the first
time.
No joy
for Tasmanian Richie Porte who had been cruising comfortably until ‘disaster’
struck when he punctured within 5 km to go. His cause wasn’t helped by the
snail pace like wheel change effort from the neutral service. By the time Porte
got moving again the front of the pack was already ripping the legs off each
other.
Porte
seems to be unable to shake off the grand tour curse – a puncture incident
cruelled his chances at last year’s Giro. On that occasion he took a two minute
penalty for accepting a wheel from Simon Gerrans. This time Porte finished
almost two minutes down.
Of
course it’s early days but Porte has a big job ahead, and needs a miracle, if wants
to get anywhere near the podium in Paris.
