Bicycle Racer

You won’t ever see a better time trial than yesterday’s spectacle in Pau. Tragic and astonishing at once, the racecourse with its twists and turns, climbs and long, runway-like straightaways favored no one style of rider, demanding the makeup of skills that denote that greatest of cycling compliments: un vrai coureur (a true bicycle racer). Julian Alaphilippe showed us what a racer really is. To watch him combining that perfectly balanced TT position with his breathtaking downhill skills to throw the unwieldy machine from the edge of one gutter to the other with abandon, mere centimeters from the public, tucking in for the long, headwind straightway leading to the treacherous uphill finish into Pau before finishing off his effort like it was the finale of La Fleche Wallonne, was simply riveting. Add in the stunning announcements that he was leading all of the time checks, that instead of calculating by what small handful of seconds he was going to, maybe, keep the Yellow Jersey away from the all-conquering Team Ineos, instead, suddenly witnessing the birth of a legitimate Tour winner, made for a completely satisfying spectator experience. Imagine being in the crowd at the side of the road yesterday, hearing the time checks, seeing him coming by in Yellow, all of France jumping out of their skin…it must have been just beautiful. Even Nicolas Portal, the Team Director of Ineos when asked about Geraint Thomas’s ride by the press ignored the question and went straight into singing Alaphilippe’s praises before exclaiming: “What do you expect? After all, I’m French!”

It wasn’t just Alaphilippe providing excitement of course. Kasper Asgreen, after 10-days of racing on the front in a combined workload for Alaphilippe and sprinter Elia Viviani showed his massive talent by turning in a sparking performance to finish 8th on the day, 52” down on the winner. At only 22, the Dane is just getting going and one can only imagine him in five-year’s time. Thomas De Gent’s love of the solo effort gave him the early lead, putting him in the race-leaders hot seat for hours, the camera catching his facial expressions as he watched each successive ride come in and fail to dethrone him, eventually finishing third. The terrible crash of Wout van Aert, just 500-meters from the finish when he seemed enroute to take the lead, in full, heart-pounding effort, was clearly in terrible pain and prostrate on the side of the road for what seemed the longest time. It was dreadful and all of Belgium was suffering right along with their champion as were we. 

Then came the real Yellow Jersey contenders and they didn’t disappoint. The main victims of the windy roads to Albi rose to the occasion and got themselves back in game, starting with Rigoberto Uran whose 4th place on the day, 36” down on the winner, reminded the world that he’s still the only Colombian with real flatland power, the kind you need to win the Tour – both Quintana and Bernal went slow. Without the disaster in the wind stage, Uran would be in 4th overall at 2’ 14” down on the leader. Thibaut Pino rode with heart and soul to finish 7th, the same position as his overall. He’d be third overall without Albi – costly that stage, wasn’t it?
Jakob Fuglsang’s long period of form finally came to an end, his dreams of winning the Tour now over after losing 1’ 07” in the TT. The Astana will shift gears and begin to chase stage wins. 

The two invisible men, Steven Kruijswijk and Enric Mas unveiled themselves with excellent rides. The Dutchman is in 3rd overall and Enric Mas 4th, the Spaniard taking the White Young Rider jersey away from Egan Bernal. Mas goes to Movistar next year and the team, seeing the counter-performances of Mikel Landa and Nairo Quintana, can hardly wait for him to get there.

Geraint Thomas, clearly in shock, trying to make sense of this new world order that none of the programming at Team Ineos had accounted for, managed to be gracious regarding Alaphilippe with the post-race press. The Welshman, who showed such exciting power in his ride had seemed unbeatable and on the way to continue the team’s total domination until the time checks began to come in. The Sky/Ineos have always, in the six-years that they’ve been winning the Tour, held the Yellow Jersey by Stage 14, putting their TGV of a team on the front from there to Paris. This is new territory for them, the art of tactical improvisation, finding the sense of attack, and their attempts at it will continue to make this Tour the best in memory. 

Alaphilippe now has Mas close by to help in all sort of situations and you can count on the French teams to lend a subtle – and not so subtle - hand to both him and Pinot against Team Ineos. None wants to see another British win, and, besides the national pride, every French rider and team will benefit from a home country triumph. Reading into all of that intrigue is the stuff that make this sport so fascinating. Today’s finish on the Tourmalet will tell the truth. If Alaphilippe, last year’s Mountain Jersey winner just the same, can pass the mythical climb in front with his challengers, then his road to the win in Paris will become that much clearer and smoother. Yet another day of must-see-television at this fantastic, marvelous Tour de France.