Stage 19 Albertville / Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc - Good Day for Bardet, Bad Day For Holland

Stage 19 and it was the penultimate day in the French Alps as the Tour made its way on the 146 km route from Albertville to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc.

Over in the Tour kitchen Gabs whipped up a blueberry mousse. Have you noticed he’s has gone a bit heavy on the desserts this year? Well, you’re not fooling me Gabs, I see what you’re doing - this is all a ruse to try and hide a Buttergate scandal isn’t it? You’re not fooling the peloton either and quicker than you can say “blueberry pie”, riders bemoaned the lack of butter in the recipe.

Out on the road and lots of tired bodies were hauling themselves up the climbs. Rain and thunder was forecast for the stage but so far no signs of it yet and none of the cows were seated.

Early in the race a 20 man breakaway made its escape with Asstana driving the peloton in pursuit. After three weeks of hard racing you couldn’t blame riders for getting a little tetchy, teammates included. In one example Asstana’s Diego Rosa appeared to have words with teammate Andriy Grivco to back off with the pacemaking. Grivco snapped back with a non-verbal, “no one tells Grivco what to do”.

Mattie was profiling the ever rising baby-faced star of French cycling, Romain Bardet. Apparently he landed a role in the communications department at ASM Clermont Auvergne rugby club to finish off his business degree. Sounds interesting but I didn’t know they take in 12 year olds as interns these days.

It seemed like everybody on two legs and four was out to cheer on the riders with a first confirmed sighting of goats, which happened to be seated indicating rain. Phil swears that seated cows can be counted upon to forecast rain but so far the cows had been standing. So who’s right, the cows or the goats?

Tom Dumoulin had a fall with Daniel Teklahaimanot. Dumoulin looked to be distressed holding his wrist, crying at the side of the road. He withdrew citing ‘severe wrist trauma’ which later turned out to be fractured radius, putting his trip to Rio in doubt. It was a sad end to an outstanding Tour for the Dutchman who picked up two stage victories.

The riders passed some very well behaved standing cows on a corner. They looked very contented having scored cowbells and bottles of Alpecin shampoo after the Tour caravan passed through.

Heavy skies over the mountains suggested a storm was brewing – and not just in the physical sense but figuratively as well over the forecasting accuracy of cows vs goats. Looks like the goats are more reliable after all.

Costa on his own

On the Col de Saisies ‘the man in black’ (as Phil calls him) Wout Poels appeared as if to say, “hello, I’m Woet Poels”.

On the descent of Col de Saises the rain started coming down and Pierre Rolland came down with it as his wheel washed out from under him on a corner and slid into mud, narrowly missing a photographer’s moto. Fortunately Rolland didn’t hit a hot engine on a moto, which wouldn’t have been fun and was soon back on the bike.

The now heavy rain made descending treacherous and soon riders were falling like tenpins. Richie Porte came down in a crash with Sebastien Reichenbach and had to get back up to the GC group. The red and black of Porte’s BMC kit got Kevin Sheedy swinging his jacket above his head at the roadside and lifted Porte’s spirits.

It wasn’t all beer and skittles in the GC group as Chris Froome crashed with Vincenzo Nibali in a heart-stopping moment. Fortunately for Froome he was okay, albeit with a ripped and bloody golden fleece. Teammate Geraint Thomas was on hand who gave him his bike. At least Froome didn’t have to run or ride an omnishambles of a neutral service spare this time.

Dani Navarro was the next to crash and had to abandon. So far the only riders that hadn’t crashed were Rui Costa and the 12 year old rugby club intern Romain Bardet.

Costa had been sitting pretty up front for some time on his own oblivious to the carnage behind him. Bardet joined Costa at around 7 km to go and pulled away at 3 km to solo across the line to win the stage and France collectively died in relief.

Back down the road and all eyes were on the GC. Romain Bardet looked as if he’d knocked Bauke Mollema off the perch to take second. Mollema was having a stinker of a day having crashed and then running out of gas trying to get back into the race. Paul could see he was in trouble and said of Mollema’s rocking style, “he’s pulling himself inside out now”.

Not even, in the words of Paul, “the big dog that looks after people in the mountains”, could save him and Mollema slipped back to tenth in the overall standings. With Dumoulin out and Mollema in tenth this was a bad day for Holland.

In contrast a banged up Chris Froome crossed the line and even on a ‘strange bike’ extended his lead to 04’ 11”. But anything can happen in cycling and just when we thought the Tour was over in stage 18, stage 19 proved the race is far from over and there's still stage 20 to come.

Stage 18 Sallanches / Megève - Better Watch Out For The Skin Deep

Stage 18 and the Tour was back in France for the second time trial, and shortest stage of the Tour, the 17 km individual time trial from Sallanches to Megève.

As the Tour approaches its final days, Gabs prepared a special dish of yabby turnovers with truffle. Gabs used his keen sense of smell to sniff out the truffles from under the oak trees so he didn’t have to spend a penny on this luxury ingredient.

Speaking of luxuries, butter has been more of a luxury lately but it’s back in this recipe with 40g, taking the buerremetric counter to 830g.

An uphill time trial called for different approaches to equipment. The demand for aerodynamic efficiency isn’t so great for climbing. A number of riders opted just for their normal road bike. Others thought strap-on extension bars were the way to go. For others nothing less than the full TT kit would do.

By the time we joined the caravan of commentary many riders had already completed the course. Ion Izaguirre got his turn in the hot seat.

Roadside randoms were out in force but were noticeably better behaved than at Mount Ventoux the week before. Clearly they heeded Richie Porte’s stern talking to.

A rather poor looking Didi copy, a facsimile of the devil if you like, was bouncing around on the course. I mean come on, there’s only one Didi!

Gerard Depardieu was back at the side of the road on his annual Tour de France bender dressed in an Obelix costume.

Mattie recounted Kiwi Shane Archbold’s heroics after crashing and completing the previous day’s stage with a broken pelvis. Not quite the ‘blood and snot on the handle bars’ but cyclists are a bloody tough lot.

Jakob Fuglsang, who has some of the best hair in the peloton, rode his standard road bike like a virtual time trial with virtual extension bars except it was a real time trial.

All eyes were on Tom Dumoulin who won the first time trial in stage 13. He went the full kit and there was a touch of excitement in Robbie’s voice as he described Tom’s latex skinsuit and long socks. I do wonder about the long socks though, is Dumoulin a maths/science teacher when he’s off the bike?

Dumoulin was clearly popular with the fans who formed a Mexican wave of noise on the climb.

Mattie had made mention of Chris Froome being measured up for another skinsuit and it really had us guessing if he’d come out in an ultra shiny yellow outfit in an effort to out-do Dumoulin.

Sky unveils next season's skinsuit look

Mattie noticed Wilco Kelderman had gone the safer option and ditched the full rear disc that caused him so much grief in stage 13. Still his effort was well off the mark and Mattie recalled when he was known as ‘Wilco Keldermerckx’ because he used to win everything.

Dumoulin was setting a cracking pace and passed Jan Bakelants and his only response was with a shake of his head.

Thomas De Gendt knocked off Izaguirre from the hot seat but wasn’t there for very long as Dumoulin finished 41 seconds faster than de Gendt.

A tricky chicane on the approach to the line caused a few nervous moments. Staying safe is the key and in words worthy of a T-shirt print Robbie advised that, “slower is sometimes faster”.

It was time for Matt and Robbie to duck off to the side with the team cars to make way for Phil and Paul.

Paul noted Fabio Aru was 17 km from the finish line, which came as no surprise as he hadn’t started yet.

Phil said, “Tom Dumoulin set the bar very high here”. Well yes, but in order to achieve that he needed to set the bars very low to get the maximum aerodynamic advantage.

Geraint Thomas left the start house wearing a silky black skinsuit with see-through cutaways at the back. Jesus, did he pick it up from an adult shop?

Aru got going and finally began to close that 17 km gap to the finish line and put in a blistering effort to finish third.

It was Richie Portes' time to go and Paul thought Phil let fly with a ‘Richie Froome’. Now Paul had planted the seed we just knew it was going to happen in real life.

Nairo Quintana made a quick start and looked more at home on his customised time trial bike than in stage 13. After all the hills suit Quintana better than the flat and managed a top ten finish.

Adam Yates hit the road with a ‘Yates you can’ attitude in his bid to claw back time from Bauke Mollema. Mollema didn’t have the greatest of runs finishing down in seventeenth place.

Porte was nine seconds faster than Dumoulin at first time check and looked to be in control.

The final rider of the day Chris Froome went with the full on time trial bike with full disc at the back, which according to boundary rider Jens Voigt was the ‘risky option’.

At the second time check Porte was eight seconds down on Dumoulin and it was going to take a big effort. Porte came home in third and then was upgraded to second. Now all Dumoulin and Porte could do was wait and see how Froome would go.

Froome looked slow and there were no time checks appearing on screen but by the time he reached the third time check he was ahead of Dumoulin.

On the downhill run to the chicane section before the line Paul spotted Froome, “getting into a strange position”, as he tried to squeeze every bit of advantage from his ride.

As Froome crossed the line it was clear he was here for a big smack down and finished 21 seconds ahead of Dumoulin and extended his lead in yellow to 03’ 52” ahead of Mollema.

There’s still Friday and Saturday to go in the mountains but so long as he can stay upright, Chris Froome has pretty much got his third Tour win in the bag.

Stage 13 Bourg-Saint-Andéol / La Caverne du Pont-d'Arc - Dumoulin Dominates Time Trial

Stage 13 and after the comic drama on Mont Ventoux, it was time for the first individual time trial of the Tour on a hilly 37.5 km route from Bourg-Saint-Andéol to La Caverne du Pont-d'Arc.

Gabs prepared a special Friday treat, chocolate dessert with chestnuts. No butter and look, I know it’s been a few days and the peloton has started murmuring but you are forgiven just this once because CHOCOLATE!

I do think Gabs is having a bit of a laugh though with the addition of glacé chestnuts as a nod to the old chestnut of complaints about the lack of ‘the butter’ in the recipes. Oh Gabs, you’re such a card!

By the time we were joined by the caravan of commentary team, many riders had already completed their time trial in descending order according to the GC standings.

The ‘race of truth’ requires special bikes with extension bars, HR Giger inspired helmets, and skinsuits. All this is designed to help the rider to be as aerodynamic as possible in their attempt to beat the clock.

In recent years a lot of development has gone into the skinsuit improving a second here, a second there. Yet for all the space age breathable fabrics, experimentation with cut and contouring and hours of wind tunnel testing, what do they do to it? Pin a low-tech bib number to it.

Robbie noticed some skinsuits looked like latex. Well, you know, each to their own.

Inevitably the chaos of Mont Ventoux came up as a topic of conversation. Debate had raged over the judges’ decision to give Chris Froome the same time as Richie Porte and Bauke Mollema at the time of the stack into the moto.

Then there was the question of Froome advancing up the road on foot. Well yes, it is a bike race and not a triathlon but accepted wisdom is that you finish on a bike, in which case he did.

So yes, I agree fully with Robbie that it was the right decision to award Froome the yellow jersey. After all the crash wasn’t his fault and the judges had to acknowledge the embarrassment and humiliation of that omnishambles of a contraption laughingly called a bicycle handed to him by neutral service. In fact if he’d made it to the finish on that bike he probably deserved a time bonus of 30 seconds.

Out on the course Alexis Gougeard set the fastest time to be bettered by Maciej Bodnar. Former Hour Record holder Rohan Dennis set the fastest time until Nelson Oliveira claimed the hot seat and spent a considerable amount of time there.

Then it was Tom Dumoulin’s time to go. He was blistering on the time checks and because Oliveira had perspired so much Mattie advised him to make sure to wipe down the hot seat before he departed.

Strong winds out on the course had to be factored into the choice of which wheel to use. A full rear disc is pretty standard on the back of a time trial bike but what to put on the front?

Going double disc wasn’t even a question - riders would have been blown into the gorgeous Ardèche Gorge by the cross winds. The main choices were Tuff or spoke with variations of rim thickness in between.

While equipment is critical to the time trial, Robbie couldn’t stress more the importance of ‘dosing your efforts’. Err, that’s not legal, is it?

There were more riders to come and Sylvain Chavenel muscled his bike to the finish.

On the course Wilco Kelderman was trying to tack into the wind to avoid being swept off the road. Let that be a lesson – don’t go out on a windy time trial with a Tuff on the front.

Fabio Aru left the start house hoping to get a full service on his time trial bike from the mechanic in the team car.

To use the wheel-pizza base comparison Dan Martin went with deep pan on the back and thin crust on the front. Wasn’t a big help though.

As the start list whittled its way down to the GC contenders, all eyes were on Chris Froome and whether he could beat the 50’ 15” set by Tom Dumoulin.

Earlier the skin suit fitters were around at the Skybot team hotel measuring up Froome and he said, “make it a skinny”. Lulz ensued.

Nairo Quintana was out on the course and cut it fine, or wide I should say, on a left hander that nearly took him into the wall of a building. Quintana looked like he was over-spinning a bit on the pedals but wasn’t doing too bad a job for a pure climber and finished in 20^th. Where’s there a neutral service moto when you need it...

Finally it was time for the yellow jersey to go. Froome gained time at each of the time checks to finish 01’ 03” behind Dumoulin but take second place for the stage. Froome increased his GC lead over his nearest rival Bauke Mollema to 01’ 47”. As we enter the final week of the Tour Froome is looking certain to be on top of the podium in Paris.

Presentation time was a solemn affair with respective jersey holders and the day’s winner paying their respects to the victims of the horror Bastille Day attack in Nice.

Stage 10 Escaldes-Engordany / Revel - Bling Revels in Tour Win

Stage 10 and the Tour said goodbye to tiny Andorra as the riders set off on the 197 km hilly parcours from Escaldes-Engordany to Revel.

Gabs had enough time on his hands during the Monday rest day to go out and forage for snails. He wanted to get the riders into the spirit of Bastille Day just around the corner. What could be more French than snails? You couldn’t get any more French if you dressed the critters in striped shirts and berets and gave them a Gauloise but Gabs dressed the snails with herbs and walnut butter instead.

And yes, you read right ‘walnut butter’ and not from walnuts but real butter. At a hefty 150g the buerremetric counter has surged to 690g. Ohh yeah, the butter is back baby!

The rest day in Andorra was time for the riders to go for a bit of a leisurely pedal to keep the legs ticking over and for some serious duty free shopping.

Robbie had been out for a ride with roving reporter Henk Vogels, who had been searching for the filthiest roads in Andorra, came across teams out on their morning coffee rides. Oleg Tinkov was spotted in a rainbow jersey. Robbie thought Oleg was showing a bit of disrespect for the jersey that can only hang on the shoulders of a world champion. On the upside at least he was wearing clothes for once.

Back to the race and a 15 man breakaway formed after the race went over the top up a big climb to Port d’Envalira. Nibs, and Sagan were there along with the Three Musketeers from ORICA-BikeExchange - Daryl Impey, Luke ‘Turbo Durbo’ Durbridge and Bling (Michael Matthews).

Some sponsorship news. We now know Oleg is winding up his Tinkie team to buy a really big boat. Rumour has it he has his eye on Clive Palmer’s Titanic replica when it’s finished. The going price is said to be 20 million euros ONO, fish finder included. Alpecin confirmed it won’t be a sponsor next year so no more German engineering for your hare, it’ll just have to do with Sunsilk.

Robbie and Mattie turned to the topic of fashions in the peloton. They noted there were no sleeve tattoos, unlike footballers, because a sleeve tattoo looks a bit silly on Kermit arms. There are plenty of full set beards though, grown with permission from the captain, and the odd man bun.

Mattie spotted an artificial lake attractive to migrating birds and there’s plenty of water sport to be had. Err, okay Mattie. Fortunately, this one wasn’t radioactive.

When Robbie was racing he said he preferred to stay in a chateau than share a dodgy hotel room with the dodgy habits of roommates. The only thing was he tended to choose cheap ‘fixer-upper’ chateaux with walls but no roof, windows or upper floors.

The breakaway held its ground after a half-hearted attempt at a chase by the peloton that just gave up and decided to extend the rest day.

If snails aren't your thing there's always deconstructed croque madame

In a sign Robbie and Mattie have been spending too much time together we got the classic Keenoism from Robbie, “the cream always rises to the top”.

Expectations were rising in the caravan of commentary that Bling had a good chance of scoring a win. Mattie was so confident in he thought, “Matthews is big enough to pick up Adam Yates and put him in his back pocket”. Is that in the rule book?

The Ps caught Mattie and Robbie at 48 km to go. Thomas Voeckler popped up for a bit of TeeVee time and after all these years he’s ridden at the Tour, Phil is still perplexed by Voeckler’s ‘strange face pulling ceremonies’.

Paul noted as the miles, chains and furlongs counted down and there was still a considerable time gap and no way the peloton was going to bring the breakies back. And how do we know? We know because of Paul’s favourite ‘recipe’ – 10 kilometres for every minute, turn ‘em over and they’re done.

The race made its way through the streets of Castelnaudary. The Ps noted Castelnaudary hosts an annual festival dedicated to the regional culinary speciality, the stew of beans and sausage, cassoulet. The locals take so much pride in the event they name the town Cassouletnaudary for the duration of the festival.

At 24 km to go the leading group split spearheaded by Peter Sagan to form the Magnificent Seven of Sagan, Tom Dumoulin, GVA, Wonderful, Wonderful Boasson Hagen and the Three Musketeers Impey, Durbo and Bling.

Bling was out for revenge after finishing second to Sagan at last year’s world championship. Impey launched a series of attacks but Sagan held him in check. Durbo’s turbo wasn’t whistling as he was turning himself inside out.

Paul wasn’t hearing the whistle of turbos but the ‘whistling of tyres’ each time a rider accelerated.

Bling timed his move to perfection and crossed the line to notch up his first stage win at the Tour in addition to his previous two Giro and three Vuelta stage wins.

In the post race interview Bling said he was close to ‘giving it in’ on the Tour de France after failing to start in 2014 and spent nearly all of last year’s Tour nursing broken ribs all the way to Paris.

Finally after a week of racing the Aussie ORICA-BikeExchange team had something to celebrate and a big party was about to begin at the hotel with all the duty free picked up in Andorra.

Stage 9 Vielha Val d'Aran / Andorre Arcalis - Tiny Andorra, Oh How I Adore Ya

Stage 9 and the riders (minus Michael Morkov, who became the first abandonment of the Tour the day before) set out from Vielha Val d'Aran for the 184.5 km ride to tiny Andorra on the French and Spanish border.

Phil had been out early in the morning indulging in one of his favourite pastimes, fishing. There are many streams in this part of the world perfect for trout fishing. Phil came back with a sizable catch. That’s dinner sorted so Gabs started gutting and cleaning them and had baking the trout in herbs and bacon in mind.

But *sigh*, no butter. Look top marks for the bacon, everyone loves bacon (except vegans, don’t worry, they’ll soon tell you) but remember what you said about the year of the butter???

Out on the road the temperature was rapidly rising and the Moviestars where on the go from the get go, particularly on the descents.

Robbie came across a herd of cows on one of the descents on his morning  recon ride. He hoped they’d been cleared from the road. Don’t worry Robbie, I’m sure Nairo Quintana's ‘fixer’ was there to fix the cow problem even without the help of Christopher Pyne.

Looking at the roads from the Tour chopper there were many twists and turns. One hill looked like it was draped with a piece of squid ink spaghetti... oh sorry, I forgot we're not at the Giro.

As the mercury soared into the 30s, the road surface started to turn into soft, soggy tar. Soft soggy tar? Don’t you mean arsephalt Robbie?

And Robbie’s advice on dealing with a stage like today? Eat. Drink. Stay calm - and eat a banana.

The caravan of commentary had sunk so far into the soggy arsephalt Robbie had to put up the periscope to see what was going on. So, the caravan of commentary isn’t a caravan at all but a noisy Collins Class submarine.

Mattie and Robbie analysed Froome’s winning move off the Col de Peyresourde the previous day. No one knew Froome had the intestinal fortitude to pull off such a daring descent. Yes, he was shitting kittens but later confessed to having the time of his life.

Again, the topic of food and drink came up. Mattie explained Gabs’ philosophy of,“feed them until they’re full and then feed them some more”. Sounds like a ding-dong battle with online trolls.

The peloton was up and down all day long and if you think it’s hilly here, wait until they reach Andorra. Mattie reckoned that the only way to ride on the flat in Andorra is indoors on a KICKR.

Robbie and Mattie spotted some white water rafters. You can’t raft uphill to Andorra, well not unless without the assistance of a fish ladder perhaps.

The heat was really starting to get to the riders and they were looking at any way they could to keep cool. Good old ice stockings were handed out from team cars. Now the WAGS know where their stockings disappear to at the end of the European season.

Robbie saw Peter Sagan tip an ice bucket over his head. Robbie said he’d be cooler without the man bun. On that we can all agree.

Alberto Contador, who was still nursing his injuries from stage 1 and 2, had woken up with a fever. This didn’t stop him from launching a counter attack alongside Alejandro Valverde but it was clear he looked to be in trouble. We knew it was serious when the Pyrenean vultures started circling on the thermals above Contador.

Finally, Contador abandoned, along with Gabs’ commitment to the year of the butter.

The peloton struggled on in the heat to try to make it to ‘Old Andorra’ by sundown. Old Andorra sounds like one of those theme parks where they have actors in period costumes do knife fights and stuff. In all honesty, I have no idea what they get up to in Andorra but isn’t it famous for rabbits and as a tax haven?

Andorra's number one export, Angolan rabbits

Many pro-riders claim they live in Andorra because it’s a ‘climbers’ paradise’. Yeah right, like bankers in the Cayman Islands because they’re a bankers’ paradise.

As the riders approached the border of Andorra Robbie spotted Italian cyclist Fabio Aru with the distinctive tape on his face, which is there to stop his nose falling off.

The riders had their passports out as they sped through the border control into Andorra. Robbie said, “they don’t check passports at the borders in EU countries, unless they think you’re dodgy”. He must have learnt that from experience.

The Ps made their catch at 49 km to go and came across the Caldea Thermal Spa, which looked eerily similar to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Needless to say the thermal cameras used to detect hidden motors in bicycles went berserk.

Riders started to crack in the heat and claimed, along with Alberto Contador, Mark Renshaw and Matthieu Ladagnous. What the riders needed to keep cool was a series of mist emitting gantries over the road, just like you find in alfresco dining areas.

Paul had to bring out the T-bone Pinot motor circuit training story. Then he dropped an ‘Etixx – Quick Stop’ to top it off with 'Richie Froome'. Some things never change.

Spectator weren't exactly a big help. A roadside random in a green morph suit couldn't see where he was going and narrowly escaped a collision, No such luck for the spectator who stepped out onto the road on a blind corner to be collected by Kiwi George Bennett. The spectator hit the deck and didn't get up.

The climbers with, according to Paul, ‘thick pedigrees’ got themselves up front with 19 km to go. At 10 km to go the group was slapped in the face by Tom Dumoulin who rode away solo.

On the final approach to the finish at Arcalis, rain or spray from alfresco dining areas was spotted on the road. No, it was rain and pretty soon the heavens opened up and according to Paul it was, ‘raining jelly beans’ that he enjoys throughout the year.

The riders had prayed for more ice earlier in the day and the cycling Godz over delivered. Thank goodness the hail was jelly bean and not golf ball sized.

A wet and soggy Tom Dumoulin raised his arms at the line to win his first stage at the Tour de France. He was disappointed with his effort in the individual time trial at the start of last year’s Tour in his home country the Netherlands but the solo win in Andorra more than atoned for it.

Stage 3 Anvers / Huy - Hell in the North

Stage 3 and the Tour moved to Belgium for 159.5 km route from Anvers ( Antwerp) to Huy. The peloton set off with one thing in mind – the  finish at the top of the short but brutal Mur de Huy (literally Wall of Huy), the traditional hill finish of the one-day Spring classic La Fleche Wallonne.

The 1.3km climb doesn’t seem too hard on paper but in reality it’s a narrow twisting climb that kicks up very steeply on some of the corners. The other difficulty associated with the climb is how do you properly pronounce Mur de Huy? Is it ‘Murder Wee’, ‘Moody Wee’? I think we can settle on ‘Moo-do-Hooee’ as a bit of dairying goes on in the area.

Now that the Tour is in Belgium, Gabs thought the lads might be up for a serve of hot chips. Let’s face it, aren’t we all always up for a serve of hot chips? OK, maybe not for breakfast, that’s cold pizza, but you get the idea.

No butter in Gab’s recipe for Belgian fries, just sliced up spuds cooked in hot oil with some mayo to go with it. Anyway who cares about butter? They’re hot chips for goodness sake. The Buerremetric counter sits at 90g.

In contrast to the rain and wind of Zeeland, Belgium put on a lovely day in a part of the world more accustomed to gloomy skies and rain. The peloton looked relatively relaxed, probably with the relief of having survived a nasty day on the blustery Dutch coast.

Spartacus defiantly takes on the Mur de Huy

Just like over the border in Holland, Belgians are rather fond of their road furniture. So much so they took measures to protect it from the riders with tried and true hay bale safety barriers. Either that or they were expecting a large and hungry herd of livestock to follow the peloton.

It was also a lovely day for a bit of tractor field art. At the spring classics in Belgium we saw a lot of tractors at the roadside as part of a campaign by dairy farmers against the removal of EU milk quotas.

In some countries people take to bad street theatre whereas the Belgians seem to take to their tractors whenever they have a gripe against government. A spin off of this is a growing tractor field art movement and from what we saw the Belgians are getting quite good at it.

Phil and Paul discussed the various fashions of the peloton and couldn’t help but notice the change to the Tinkoff-Saxo kit. It’s certainly bright but can’t quite work out what’s the go with the camouflage pattern. Are the Tinkies part of Putin’s plans for an invasion of Ukraine?

Back to the race the peloton was setting a cracking pace when at around 55 km to go disaster struck where a touch of wheels sent riders crashing all over the road and into ditches.

White jersey leader Tom Dumoulin was the first to abandon with a shoulder injury. William Bonnet was out with a head injury.  OGE Simon Gerrans’ run of terrible luck continued with a broken wrist and teammate Daryl Impey also abandoned due a shoulder injury. This is huge blow for the OGEs who will go into the stage 9 team time trial with only seven riders.

The man in yellow Spartacus didn’t escape the mayhem either. He got up looking sore but got back on his bike and rode on - little did we know - with two broken vertebrae.

The crash resulted in the race being neutralised, then it was stopped for about ten minutes by officials as medics were dispatched to deal with the many wounded. Opinion was divided on whether the race should have been totally brought to a halt but given the amount of carnage out there it was probably the right decision.

The race was re-started and the riders were clearly shaken. The riders eventually settled down and the pace was back on. We could see Spartacus was hurting and he was going to hurt more climbing the Mur de Huy.

As the Mur de Huy loomed Phil saw riders ‘bubbling to the top of the pot’. I presume that’s the same as Matthew Keenan’s ‘cream rising to the top’.

On the climb up the Mur de Huy Chris Froome and Alberto Contador went head to head and then Joaquim Rodriguez bubbled over the top to pull away from Froome and ‘Purito’ (little cigar) was first across the line. No stage win cigar for Froome but he moved into yellow with a one second lead over Panzerwagen Tony Martin.

One by one the battered and grazed riders crossed the line and special applause was saved for Fabian Cancellara who was determined to finish the stage with a broken back rather than abandon on course. That’s Spartacus for you, always a fighter to the end.

Stage 1 Utrecht / Utrecht - Dennis menaces the ITT to victory in Utrecht

The 102^nd edition of the Tour de France kicked off in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on a hot sunny day with an individual time trial, the so called ‘race of truth’ (or clichés) on a pancake flat but twisty course in the heart of town.

SBS host Mike Tomalaris opened proceedings with a reminder of his twentieth year covering the Tour de France. Congratulations Mike for bringing the world of cycling into our lounge rooms and raising the profile of the sport down under.

Mind you back then Mike wouldn’t have looked out of place rocking a keytar in a Pseudo Echo line up.

Tomo all those years ago.      Picture courtesy of @sitdowninfront

Our favourite chef Gabriel Gaté was back on duty and ready to feed the peloton for the next three weeks. On his way through Gouda he picked up a few wheels - of cheese, not bikes that is - and cooked up a batch of delicious Dutch Gouda tartlets.

"I Gouda been a contender. I Gouda been somebody".  Picture courtesy of the Internet.

I think he’s finally heeded the complaints about the lack of butter in his recipes in the opening stages of recent Tours and the Buerremetric counter opens with 40grams.

Before the time trialling even got underway there was controversy with Asstana’s Lars Boom. As Paul Sherwen put it (yes, he’s back along with Phil Liggett), the Dutchman was pulled up due to ‘undulating values in his biological passport.’ I guess that’s Sherwenese for ‘suspect drug cheat?’

At issue were low cortisol levels detected in a health test which could suggest cortisone abuse. Asstana happens to belong to the group Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) and under its rules Boom should’ve been stood down for eight days. Asstana ignored the rule and let Boom start anyway, which says a lot about the credibility of the team’s commitment to the MPCC.

One by one the riders started from the start house, or the finish house, Phil wasn’t quite sure. One thing we were sure of after Aussie BMC rider Rohan Dennis finished his ITT was that we knew he’d broken Chris Boardman’s record for the fastest Tour time trial.

It was Rohan’s turn for the hot seat and there he sat for the rest of the race and he has the distinctive grill markings on his knicks to prove it. Fancied favourites ‘Panzerwagen’ Tony Martin, Spartacus (Fabian Cancellara) tried, but failed, to push Dennis off the BBQ.

Dutchman Tom Dumoulin started his time trial with the full support and full voice of his countrymen and women. Paul reckoned the Dutch fans would be blowing on Dumoulin’s back, er, to urge him on to the win. Still it wasn’t enough.

And it looked like all of Utrecht turned out to watch the stage on the 13.8km course. As it turned out the turns were not as difficult as first thought. Paul described the corners as floaters. Yikes, don’t you just hate that? People should be reminded to flush.

As the afternoon wore on the temperature continued to rise. Phil noted riders were putting on ice vests much like heaters on F1 race car tyres. Paul spotted a golf ball helmet. Well, you know what they say about cycling...

Apart from the kafuffle surrounding Lars Boom’s start there were no major incidents to report. OK, there was a bit of a drama with BMC’s Dominik Nerz’s broken extension bar, and that’s not a euphemism by the way.

Paul noted every rider had been dreaming of winning the ITT. Only a rider, not a dreamer, can win and Rohan Dennis rode an amazing race to wear the golden fleece with pride.

I’ve been a bit busy lately penning a tune for the Tour. I can’t think of a better way of honouring the Tour by paying tribute to John Degenkolb who’s here at this year and is the winner of the prestigious Milan San-Remo – Paris-Roubaix double.

I guarantee after your little darlings hear this they’ll be singing it for the next three weeks, although by then you’ll probably wishing your offspring would just let it go...

Without further ado I bring you ‘Degenkolb’, to the hit tune from the Disnae movie Frozen.

Degenkolb (to the tune of Let it Go)

The red kite shows the finish in site

Not a soigneur to be seen

Paris is the destination

And the next stage is the queen

The cross winds are a howling and there’s an echelon to the side

The peloton couldn’t keep together, heaven knows they tried

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see

Be the good rider you always have to be

Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know

Well, time to go

Degenkolb, Degenkolb

Can’t hold him back anymore

Degenkolb, Degenkolb

Pedal on and slam the door

He don’t care what they’re going to say

Let the race go on

The moustache jokes never bothered him anyway

It’s funny how some distance makes the peloton seem so small

And the nerves that once controlled him don’t get to him at all

It’s time to see what he can do

Test the red zone limit and break through

The way is clear for him he sees

He’s free

Degenkolb, Degenkolb

Rides like the wind against Sky

Degenkolb, Degenkolb

On the straight you’ll see him fly

On the podium he stands and there he’ll stay

Let the race go on

His power transfers through the pedals to the ground

His chain ring is spiralling in a frenzy all around

And one thought as Kristoff tries to whiz past

There’s no looking back, he’s riding freaking fast

Degenkolb, Degenkolb

He’ll rise to train at the break of dawn

Degenkolb, Degenkolb

The perfect lead out has gone

On the podium he stands in the light of day

Let the race go on

The cobbles never bothered him anyway