A Beautiful Time Trial
Per Bausager, a Danish pro of my era, posted this perfect description of yesterday’s Time Trial winner, the defending Tour de France champion, 22-year-old Tadej Pogačar:
“There's nothing special about him to see. Not the perfect style of Asgreen and Küng, not a powerful physique like Van der Poel and Didi Thurau, not the murderous look of Armstrong and Hinault. The only unusual thing about him is an inexhaustible power reservoir - that he is always in progression and never in ′′ difesa " (defense). A man who lives permanently on top of the pedals.”
“On top of the pedals” is true racing term, denoting a rider who is quite literally ‘breathing’ his pedal strokes, demonstrating a complete coordination between the cardiovascular and muscular systems. An ability to handle any gear, to rev it up or down at will, to pedal with an aggression that puts the legs ‘ahead’ of the pedals on every stroke. A great martial artist ‘breathes’ their throws and blows; a great painter – as one explained to me – will ‘breathe’ their brush strokes.
Julian Alaphilippe was not breathing his bicycle yesterday. The World Champion labored through the TT, shoving his pedals and turning his legs as though there was glue in the bottom bracket. Losing 1’11” to the Slovenian in a brave performance – given his off day – he sits in 4th overall, still only 40” behind Pogačar and still in a position to cause mischief as he so loves to do. Of the other GC contenders, rising Danish talent Jonas Vingegaard showed that he’s a force to be reckoned with by finishing third in the TT, sitting 8th overall and 1’43” behind. The walking wounded of Primoz Roglič and Geraint Thomas lost 44” and 1’18” respectively, dropping to 10th and 12th on GC. Richard Carapaz seemed to have a lock on Team Ineos leadership until his 23rd place and 1’44” deficit brought him back down to earth. The Ecuadorian is in 9th overall, just 10” ahead of Thomas. Rigoberto Uran, the immensely popular Colombian, is riding a fine and discreet race, now in 6th overall, 1’29” down. What all this means is the everyone is going to have to attack, attack and attack again to dislodge the young Slovenian champion who is going into the mountains with some disadvantages.
Two of his main weapons, the Suisse Marc Hirschi and American Brandon McNulty are hurt. We’re not sure about McNulty’s condition, but he certainly looked distressed after crashing yesterday, limping his bloody body in to finish dead last, 6’55” down. Hirschi has a separated shoulder and is racing in recovery mode. These are weaknesses that will be exploited and there will be a collective goal among the GC contenders to isolate Pogačar and kill off his team. So much to look forward to.
How to explain Mathieu van der Poel’s improbable and successful defense of the Yellow Jersey? It’s such a madcap story. Van der Poel, who has only been on his TT bike once or maybe twice this year – he doesn’t even have one at home, never trains on one as he’s too busy his beloved off road training – jumped on a completely alien machine and pulled out the performance of a lifetime. His technical team, like parents preparing Christmas morning, stayed up the entire night, trying new handlebars and saddle positions, getting Shimano on the phone to ask permission to use special wheels. Ah, those wheels.
There is a husband and wife who have a gîte (simple country inn) in the Pyrenees that caters to cyclotourists. Elma, the wife, received a phone call the night before the TT from Meindert Klem, a famous Dutch rower, asking if they could drop everything – their gîte was full – and go to Andorra, pick up some Princeton Carbonworks wheels, and get them to van der Poel’s team before the morning. Elma stayed, ordering husband Mark into action. 10 hours and 900 kilometers later, Mark showed up in Northwest France with the wheels. That’s the cycling I love, right there. The strong bonds of community that give our sport its strength through so much adversary.
One also has to love van der Poel and his scrappy Alpecin-Fenix team. He jumps into the Tour, wins Stage Two and dons Yellow which he’s held ever since. Tim Merlier won Stage Three and Jasper Philipsen was third the day after. What’s clear in watching them is that the riders possess incredible tradecraft – so very expert in everything they do, a joy to watch in the sprints. Quite possibly the greatest team in history was the Ti Raleigh of the 1970-80’s. They were a band of pirates, absolutely ruthless, expert race winners. The van der Poel clan, who have direct links back to that fabled team, are rebuilding the franchise right before our eyes. They’ve eschewed all the big money offers to slowly and deliberately create a new juggernaut of cycling, one done the right way. Got to love that as well and the sense, knowledge and respect of cycling history that is imbodied in their already highly successful project.