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 13 Muret / Rodez - Like a Carrot out the Front of a Donkey

Stage 13 and it was going to be a blistering hot day in the sun out in the fields of southern France on the 198.5 km route to Rodez.

Over to the kitchen and everyone thought Gabs had lost his marbles slaving over a cauldron of creamy celeriac and Roquefort soup. He was working on the theory that having something hot will cool the riders down. That’s our Gabs, the peloton always comes first. But I’m intrigued by the addition of Roquefort, wasn’t that a TV series from the 70s?

How slack was it of me not posting the buerremetric counter last time we met? There wasn’t any butter in the lamb stew so no biggy but there’s 20g of butter in the soup which takes the buerremetric counter to 200g!

Right from the start the breakies were on the move with Alexandre Geniez, Thomas De Gendt and musicians Cyril Gotye and Wilco Kelderman. Aussie Nathan Hass and Pierre-Luc Périchon, who are not musicians but cyclists joined the group.

The chase was on lead by the Giant-Alpecin team who were hoping to catch the breakies to see if they could flog some of their shampoo to them.

Co-starring Oleg Tinkov, as himself

Then at 64km to go Jean – Christophe Peraud had a nasty crash and a wafer thin layer of breathable fabric offers little protection against a cheese grater rough road. He got up, badly bleeding, knicks shredded and got back on his bike whilst the mobile medics taped up his arms.

What a trooper, he even got back to bottle duty collecting bidons from the team car. Must have been really hot out there, those bottles weren’t just sticky they were literally melting to his hand. Hmmm, but who could really blame him after leaving skin and part of his knicks on the road?

Oh yes, what we also learned from that crash is just what a pro-cyclist wears under his knicks, which is pretty much the same as what a Scotsman ‘wears’ under his kilt.

As the day wore on the temperature kept climbing. Bidons, tyres, riders, everything was melting out there except the nasty little climbs. Paul spotted one climb ‘that doesn’t have a descent’ which we presume keeps on going forever out past Pluto.

Still the breakies lead the chase ,’like a carrot out the front of a donkey’. What, Euskaltel Euskadi is back Paul?

Haas went on the attack at 24 km to go and De Gendt and musicians Gotye and Wilco were all swallowed up by the pack just short of the line. It was good to see OGE Michael ‘Bling’ Matthews working up front after that horrible crash in the first week.

Greg van Avermaet and Peter Sagan surged on the charge for the line and van Avermaet was just too good and it was yet another second place finish for Sagan.

Chris Froome held his lead and with a bit over a week of racing to go it looks like he’ll be wearing yellow all the way to Paris.