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 20 Modane Valfréjus / Alpe d’Huez - Alpe d'Crazyaz

Stage 20 and the Tour reached the penultimate stage. At 110.5 km the course was relatively short but this would be no easy day in the saddle with two big horse category climbs up the Col de la Croix de Fer and the legendary Alpe d’Huez.

Gabs had been out foraging all morning and came across plenty of wild alpine blueberries. Quicker than you can say ‘blueberry pie’, Gabs had whipped up a delicious blueberry mousse. No butter in the recipe and the buerremetric counter sits on 250g. I’m wondering if Gabs has left the butter for final charge to the line in Paris?

The peloton was well and truly underway when we caught up with Phil and Paul. To Paul this was ‘just a Saturday afternoon bike ride’. Yeah, after three weeks of hard racing and up a freaking mountain.

By the way, I finally got the definitive translation on that NAB ad that’s been running throughout the Tour on SBS. You know the one, it looks like Prince William and his sister (if he had one) are sitting in a lovely restaurant with a magnificent view. The woman asks, "It’s a great business you have here, what’s your secret?" To which the owner replies, “Well, I'm being paid a shitload of money by NAB to use my restaurant in this ad". Fair answer.

Back to the race and the riders were on the first big climb the Col de la Croix de Fer, although Phil got a little ahead of himself and called it the Alpe d’Huez. Great, I can see the Ps are getting their cols mixed up already. All we needed to wait for was a Col de Col Porter.

Froometana was tapping out a rhythm with Richie Porte and Wout Poels, who was checking his lucky numbers. Three kilometres from the summit of whatever mountain they were on ‘Quinfroome’ suddenly sprouted wings and took off with fellow Moviestar Alejandro Valverde.

Over the summit Froome and Quintana were back together but it was clear Quintana was seriously going to try and rip the yellow jersey from the shoulders of Froome. But with the help of trusty lieutenant ‘Richie Froome’ (yes, Phil actually said that, again) Quintana was going to have a hard task ahead of him.

Hehe, Richie Froome. A classic but I still reckon ‘Dean Martin’ from The Jensie is the best name mix up of the Tour.

Finally it was time for Tomo to usher in viewers from Western Australia. He mentioned that the tour was a three week endurance test. Yes, it sure is an endurance test for Aussie Tour fans Tomo, but as you know, we love every moment of it.

Troll DJ chimed in with the Clash’s ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ Should we go? Heck no, don't go now, the best is yet to come on the Alpe d'Huez!

Orange flares on Dutch Corner

On the approach to the Alpe d’Huez the riders passed an impressively large body of water. Large bodies of water are on my drinking game list, don’t ask me why. That impressively large body of water was held back by an equally impressive dam and did I spot a fish ladder at the side of that wall?

Meanwhile breakies Alexandre Geniez, Thibaut Pinot, Winner Anacona, Ryder Hesjedal, Pierre Rolland, Ruben Plaza and José Serpa reached the start of the mythical Alpe d’Huez. The riders were ‘tapping on their pedals’. They have an ever expanding repertoire but on a climb like this you don’t want to be caught square dancing on the pedals.

The climb to the top of the Alpe dHuez is horrendous, but is it the 13.8 km at 8.1 per cent average gradient that makes it so awful?

No.

Is it the steep ramps on the 21 hairpin bends that the riders dread?

No.

It’s the rabid fans at ‘Dutch Corner’ that make this climb such an ordeal.

The breakies were the first to run the gauntlet of roadside random central station with orange flares going off and the corridor of noise was going insane. To top it off a streaker ran up the road. Oh my God, this climb IS horrendous.

Phil spotted 'Thibaut Pierre' (now we’ve heard everything) launch a solo attack at 6 km to go.

Further back Quintana was on the attack and Froome found himself in trouble– “it’s a white dress with gold bands. It’s a white dress with gold bands”. Hurls kitchen sink, “Take that you pillock!”

Meanwhile Thibaut Pierre soloed up the road first across the line at Alpe d’Huez. After a horrendous first week winning here for the Frenchman at Alpe d’Huez was the icing on the cake.

Not long after Chris Porte crossed the line and Richie Froome came in seventh with a big smile. We we can all agree he put in a great ride to be able to survive the ordeal of Dutch Corner.

It was a great ride from Quintana to finish second and put a sizable dent in the yellow jersey lead but bloody well done Chris Froome who had the measure of the GC contenders for the whole Tour.

As Froome accepted yet another yellow jersey on the podium there was a little shake of the head. Not sure if that was in relief or directed at the booers. Whether you love him or hate him, Chris Froome has copped a lot of flack at this Tour and it's undeserved in my opinion.

Who would have imagined three weeks ago we’d be here today and now it's just the parade and the crit race in the heart of Paris to go.

My, how the time flies when you’re having fun.

Stage 17 Digne-les-Bains / Pra Loup – This is not a Strava ride

Stage 17 and the Tour hit the Alps proper after the rest day on a carbon copy of stage 5 in the Tour warm up Criterium du Dauphine.

Over to the kitchen and Gabs cooked up a delicious chicken and capsicum casserole with olives. The riders looked at the forecast for yet another hot day and again there were questions about the wisdom of being served up a winter dish. Gabs insisted they were going to need a hearty feed for the remaining days in the Alps.

No butter in the recipe and despite the flying start in the first week of the Tour, the buerremetric counter hasn’t budged from 200g for days now.

Out on the road Bertie was having a fairly good day doing some damage in the peloton. Not such a great day for Tejay van Garderen who had started the day in third and had been battling a splitting headache until finally he abandoned, looking shattered, at 70 km to go. It was a sad end to a highly successful Tour.

The temperature climbed to 30 degrees and Phil forecast that it would rain ‘torrentiary’ at around 4.15 in the afternoon. In the absence of any cows, let alone seated cows, there was no real reference point to confirm this so Phil was forced to consult an unreliable forecast provided by Météo-France.

Troll DJ was happily laying down the tunes and played Tour standard ‘Bicycle Race’ by Queen. OK the title is a bit obvious (bicycle race, duh) but listen closely and the references in the song lyrics are pure genius:

You say black I say white – MTN-Qhubeka jersey
You say bark I say bite –  Froome Dog
You say shark I say hey man – Nibs ‘The Shark of Messina’
Jaws was never my scene – after Sunday I don’t think it’s Mick Fanning’s either.

John Degenkolb was on the move riding like he’s got some serious shampoo sales targets to hit before the end of the Tour. The peloton skirted the old border of the Savoie region whose culinary delights are known as Savoie fare…

‘Simon Gesture’ - Geschke to the rest of us - was leading the race at around 27 km to go in the rarefied air of the Alps on the climb of the Col d’Allos. Paul was a little concerned with dark clouds and how it would affect the descent.

The Jensie reported that he expected ‘open fire works’ between Alberto Contador and Nairo Quintana on the climb which is a relief because the concealed ones really burn when they go off.

Pinot in action at Bathurst

Paul mentioned Thibaut Pinot’s previous psychological problems with mountain descents and noted he had special training on a racetrack. The only mountain racetrack I can think of is Mt Panorama at Bathurst NSW.

Paul is rather enamoured with the all this GPS tracking bizzo on the bikes which would come in handy if someone tried to pinch it. He’s thinking of getting one of those Strava thingies for himself. But this is the Tour, this is not a Strava ride Paul.

The downhill run from Col d’Allos loomed and it’s pretty scary. One would hope the riders had a fresh pair of knicks in their suitcase of courage because they were going to need it.

Pinot made his way over the summit and a little chute on a left-hander would give anyone the yips but he had the composure to get straight back on and did a pretty good job off the ride down. Looks like that Bathurst training is really paying off.

The heads of state started to make their moves and as Paul would say they were ‘going for the juggler’.

The sky was looking angry, in the air and on the ground as Chris Froome wouldn’t let anyone take a second off him. He looked composed as you don’t want to lose it all in the Alps and the gels don’t stay down well on the dizzy descent of the Col d’Allos.

Simon Gesture kept his lead as he ascended the final climb to Pra Loup and nearly took out a team car in the process.

Back up the road Alberto Contador crashed and Peter Sagan was right there to help. Bertie sustained some damage to his knicks but the real damage had been done to his time losing more than two minutes by the end of the day.

Simon Geschke soloed to the line for his first Tour stage finish and there was no hiding the emotion of winning a big mountain stage.

Quintana and Froome came in across the line and there was talk from German commentary a rider went over the side of the mountain. Fortunately there was no substance to the rumour and the only thing that looked like it went over the side of a mountain was Bertie’s chance of a place on the podium in Paris.

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!

Stage 10 Tarbes / La Pierre-Saint-Martin - Froome Vroom

Stage 10 and after the rest day in Pau the Tour headed skyward in the first of the mountain stages in the Pyrenees in southern France.

The rest day offered respite from a difficult first week and riders chose to spend the day in a variety of ways. For some there’s no let up and go out for a hard training ride to keep the motor ticking over. For others it may be a leisurely coffee ride or a chance for some binge watching of illegal downloads of their favourite series.

The bombshell of the day was Tinkoff-Saxo rider Ivan Basso’s announcement he was quitting the Tour after revealing he had testicular cancer. There was a huge outpouring of support for Basso and we wish him a successful recovery.

In the kitchen Gabs looked at the forecast for a rather warm day in the Pyrenees and didn’t fancy having to slave over a hot stove. Cold cuts and salad seemed a bit too boring and thought salmon tartare would be the perfect summery dish. No butter in the recipe but a bit of crème fraîche is delightful with the fish. The buerremetric counter sits on 130g.

The peloton set off on the gentle rolling roads that would be perfect for a delightful cycling holiday in the French countryside. Not much in the way of the fancy looking chateaux of the north, just one of your more typical fortified castles you see in the south of France were you’d expect a medieval soldier with an outrageous French accent to appear on the wall and hurl insults at the English.

I throw a gauntlet in your general direction

The riders went though some pretty towns through the valleys of the Basque country. One town, Paul noted, not only produced Basque linen but also umbrellas because it rains a lot.

Meanwhile eagle-eyed Phil spotted a Pyrenean vulture soaring above the valley, looking for signs of weakness in the peloton. He thought the vulture had the, “best place in the house of a view of the Tour de France and if they fall off he may well land and help himself”.  Lucky Lars Boom didn’t start, a fever put paid to that.

As the peloton headed skyward for the 15km climb to the finish, Paul delivered his standard rest day lecture about how the body can react in a ‘strange way’ after coming out of the starting blocks off the back of a rest day. In the heat a few bodies were reacting strangely and that was just the roadside randoms.

Eyes were on Frenchman Thibaut Pinot on Bastille Day but it seems at this year’s Tour he can’t take a trick and cracked early - boom, boom out go the lights, as Paul likes to say.

Nibs was the first of the ‘fabulous four’ to crack and was dangling out the back at about 10km to go. Phil said Nairo Quintana was up there in the front group, “but he’s so small we can’t see him.” An ‘Adams twin’ was there too, but we weren’t sure which.

Alejandro Valverde launched a short lived attack with a brutal burst of acceleration throwing a gauntlet in the general direction of the Skybots.

Alberto Contador started to crack at 6.5 km to go and Bertie looked like he was square dancing on the pedals. That was the moment Chris Froome decided to put the hammer down and pedalled away with a cadence that would put most of us to shame on the flat.

Quintana was barely able to hold Froome’s wheel when Froomey’s roomey Richie Porte closed in on the Columbian and overtook him to finish second. What was that about? It wasn’t as if Froome needed any help. All I can think of is Porte auditioning for a leading role with BMC.

Paul’s right about a ‘strange reaction’ after a rest day but none of us were prepared for Froome’s complete destroyation of all the riders on the way to La Pierre-Saint-Martin.

Stage 5 Arras Communauté Urbaine / Amiens Métropole - Battle on The Somme

Stage 5 and the Tour route took the riders through the First World War battlefields of The Somme on a day, as they say in the classics, that was ‘one for the sprinters.’

Gabs thought he’d been spoiling the peloton a little too much in the first few days of the Tour with treats like Belgian fries and crème brûlée. Time to get healthy, so Gabs threw together  a baby beetroot and walnut salad. Knowing not everybody likes beetroot Gabs put up a sans beetroot option, which happened to be just plain walnuts. No beer either, it was strictly ghastly kale smoothies today.

Butter was a definite no, no and after a terrific start in the first stages the Buerremetric counter has been left sitting on 90g.

The riders set off to dark skies that matched the sombre mood of the day. The rain and wind made conditions a little more uncomfortable for the riders, many who might have thought this would have been an easy day in the saddle after surviving the cobbles of stage 4.

From the start Phil and Paul detected nervousness in the peloton and if their commentary could be heard by the riders on race radio this talk of nervousness would soon have turned to annoyance. Also guys, we’re well versed in the dangers of the feed zone but a feed zone lecture twice in the space of ten minutes? I guess they don’t want us to miss anything.

Only 11km into the race and a crash claimed French sprint hopeful Nacer Bouhanni who was taken away in an ambulance. Later a crash forced Jack Bauer (the Kiwi rider, not the bloke from 24) out of the race.

FDJ's performance has Tomo worried

It wasn’t only the riders who crashed. A motorcycle cop escorting the race from, according to Paul, the ‘presidential guard’ managed to hit the lip of the tarmac and fell to the side of the road. The rider seemed all right but was obviously an ex-carrot from the now defunct Euskaltel-Euskadi team who had a tendency to crash all the time.

The SBS Troll DJ couldn’t help him/herself seeing the motorcycle chute and chimed in with ‘Sound of Da Police’ from KRS One.

As the race settled down the route was a sobering reminder of the real carnage that took place on the World War I battlefields of The Somme 100 years ago as the peloton rode by monuments and cemetery after cemetery of war dead. Such a shocking waste of young lives.

Troll DJ brought us back to the race from an ad break with David Bowie’s ‘Wild is the Wind’ and we caught the end of a phone conversation between Keeno and guest commentator the Jensie. What was that about? Intrigue? Plot? Phil and Paul will want to keep a very close eye on those two.

Poor Thibaut Pinot had another shocker of a day with a crash about 24 km from the finish. Last year’s third place getter and one of France’s best hopes could not bridge the 6 minute 30 second gap.

No such worries for the Gorilla who looks like he’s getting used to wearing green. In the battle for the line all the big guns were there – Alexander Kristoff, John Degenkolb, the ‘Manx Missile’ Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel.

Seemingly out of no where Peter Sagan surged to the line to finish just behind the Gorilla. ‘Panzerwagen’ Tony Martin hung on to the golden fleece 12 seconds ahead of Chris Froome.

Meanwhile Henk Vogels found his way back to Amiens for the post-race analysis after he was picked up by a farmer in a tractor on the cobbles. Tomo was wondering what was going on with Pinot and his FDJ team urging Henk to come out and say they were soft.

Whether Henk thought FDJ is as soft as camembert cheese we’ll never know but if FDJ wants to remain even within cooee of the podium in Paris they’ll need to HTFU quick smart.

Stage 4 Seraing / Cambrai - Follow the Yellow Cobble Road

Stage 4 and the Tour crossed the border from Belgium into France on the longest stage from Seraing to Cambrai. Like last year Tour organisers threw in some cobbles from the famous one-day Paris-Roubaix just to shake up the race a bit.

To celebrate the peloton’s arrival back in France, Gabs prepared the classic French dessert crème brûlée but with a peppermint twist. Gabs prefers fresh peppermint but if none’s available crème de menthe will do the trick but for God sakes don’t overdo it!

Meanwhile SBS sent commentator Henk Vogels to do a Tony Greig style pitch report from the cobbles. Trying to find a smooth path on the cobbles is a bit like trying to find the smooth end on a pineapple. The middle of the cobbles is where you want to be according to Henk. But Henk, what about the keys to test the cracks in the surface? Where’s the ‘weather wall? ‘

Henk has been somewhat animated in his post stage analysis wraps with Tomo. I recall the late Tony Greig once lost a key in the pitch at the WACA. I’m starting to worry Henk will loose his marbles by the end of the first week. I put it down to either the excitement of being at the Tour or maybe it’s all that sugar in the crème brûlée.

As the peloton raced to the cobbles there was a lot of chat from Paul about the special designs on the bikes adapted for the rough cobbles.

There’s a lot more suspension on these bikes than we’ve seen in the past but it’s rather discrete compared to a full suspension mountain bike which is more like a pogo stick on wheels.

Among the clever innovations Paul noticed a ‘strange polymer insert’ on one of Asstana’s S-Works bikes, which had us guessing if it was a seat post without a saddle.

Phil was more concerned about the forecast for rain and what it might do to the cobbles. He said wet cobbles were like riding on ice. Er, I don’t think WADA would allow that Phil.

A section of cobbles

By the way want to know a Froome fact? According to Phil Chris Froome was born at 6,000ft in Kenya. That’s a long way to drop, perhaps he was on a full suspension mountain bike to cushion the landing.

During the ad breaks Marcel Kittel has been popping up on the telly flogging that ‘German engineered’ Alpecin caffeine shampoo. Fair enough, he needs something to do whilst he’s out of this year’s Tour.

The shampoo is one of those two-in-one jobs, so I presume you can wash your hair and drink it so you get your morning caffeine hit before leaving the shower. What a time saver! Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? Clever Germans.

John Degenkolb is doing Alpecin ads as well. Now what I don’t understand is if Degenkolb is out on his bike, how can he be in the ads at the same time? Another thing I don’t understand is how his hair is really short but has a healthy looking beard. Does he use the shampoo on his head or his face?

Back to the race and by the time the riders hit the first of the seven cobble sectors the ‘Big Four’ Froome, Quintana, Contador and Nibali were well up front with Nibs leading the charge for a good part of the way. Again the ‘Shark from Messina’ proved what a great rider on the cobbles he is. He really should give Paris-Roubaix a crack next spring.

Cyclo-cross ace Zdenek Stybar was taking the cobbles in his stride. According to Phil he ‘likes roads with no surface’, which either means Stybar prefers sailing through thin air or it was FUBAR commentary from Phil.

It wasn’t a good day for last year’s Tour third place getter Thibaut Pinot. He punctured at about 20km to go and looked like he was losing his cool. A few minutes later he was forced to stop due to a mechanical. He was filthy and we almost saw a bike discus. From there he couldn’t get his head back into the race and one of France’s big hopes ending up finishing 6 minutes 30 seconds behind.

After three days of knocking at the door of the maillot juane, Panzerwagen Tony Martin won the stage with Degenkolb in second, and took the golden fleece off the shoulders of Froome.

Henk Vogels was conspicuously absent from the day’s post-race wrap up. Did the SBS crew ‘accidentally’ leave him behind out in a field in Northern France?