Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2018 Tour de France Stage 1 & GC Preview

NOTE: This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Introduction

Traditional coverage of bicycle racing refrains from subjective judgments; legit journalists don’t use terms like “travesty,” “mockery,” and “filthy doping douchebag” like I do. They can’t; I can. And do. In that vein, read on for my coverage of the first stage of this year’s Tour de France, a sporting event that promises the same levels of spectacle, and credibility, as professional wrestling.

Tour de France 2018 Stage 1 – Noirmoutier-En-L’Ïle to Fontenay-Le-Comte

As I join the action, there are just 21 kilometers to go. What the hell happened? Last night steephill.tv said the finish would be at about 7:30 a.m. PDT. This morning it’s saying the finish will be at 6:50. I guess the racers are making better time than expected. This is surely due to the new policy of the UCI around doping, which is to not actually police it whatsoever.

A couple of guys are off the front. They have 30 seconds on the field. It’s Jerome Cousin (Direct Energie) and Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Group Gobert). Believe it or not, I didn’t make up the name of that second guy’s team. It’s really called that.

My coverage is in French. Steephill.tv isn’t even bothering to pretend there are free English language feeds anymore. After a bunch of ads in French, the lead is down to 28 seconds with 16.6 km to go.

Favorites for this stage would obviously include Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) and Peter Sagan (Bora Hansgrohe). Cavendish is chasing Eddy Merck’s record of Tour stage wins which is something like 134. Sagan is chasing the green jersey, and possibly some podium girls later. (It’s a good thing for him he got his butt-grabbing scandal out of the way years ago so his reputation has had a chance to heal.)

Now, if you haven’t been following all the pre-Tour hype, I can’t blame you. The Tour is traditionally the most boring of the grand tours because Team Sky always brings its best team, and its best doctors, to the race. This year, the only challenge to their dominance was the race organizer, ASO, trying to keep Chris Froome from racing. This is because he finally got caught doping, having tested positive (which in bike racing parlance is now “adverse analytical finding,” as though that’s anything but a positive drug test) after “winning” last year’s Vuelta. So the UCI decided to make things smoother for everybody and just let Froome off the hook, at WADA’s behest. “It’s okay, he had twice the legal limit but his team explained everything,” the UCI told the media. “They submitted 1,500 pages of documentation, which we’re not letting anybody see, but it’s all good.” Was it 1,500 pages of banknotes?

So, I may not watch the climbing stages of this Tour because more than ever I can’t bear to look at Froome. This flat stage should favor other riders, though of course anything can happen. Wow, as if to prove my point, there was just a big crash!

Well, maybe not so big. It doesn’t seem to have slowed down the peloton, other than the famous douchebag Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ), who was not stripped of his 2017 Milan-San Remo victory despite obviously cheating.

The field is back together with 8 km to go. They’re heading toward the finish because, well, where else would they go? Back to their team vans because this sport is almost too lame to even bother with? I couldn’t blame them.

Pierre Latour is off the back, which is insult to injury since his own name is spelled wrong. Any junior high French student can tell you it’s Letour.

With 6 km to go, Quick-step Floors and Astana are massing on the front, setting up Phillippe Gilbert and … well, I guess Astana has a sprinter. How would I know? I barely watch this sport anymore!

Hmm, here’s a weird caption on the footage: “Christopher Froome Team Sky Chute.” Is this like a live doping tracker, and he’s shooting up at this very moment? Or does it mean he crashed? (Yes, “chute” means “fall.”)

I don’t see any of that footage, which would of course be glorious. Is it wrong to wish that on anybody? Of course not. I don’t want him dead or anything, but an injury would be splendid. It wouldn’t take much to sideline him. He dropped out of the 2014 Tour de France because one of his fingers got scuffed or something, while later in that Tour Alberto Contador kept racing despite having a broken fricking leg. Anyway, yeah, a Froome injury would balance things out a bit and possibly deprive a known doper from stealing another race.

Okay, here’s some Froome footage. It does look like he either crashed or just really doesn’t do a good job of keeping his jersey clean.

With 2 km to go, the peloton is still all together. The footage keeps switching to the riders who are off the back. I can’t really figure that out.

It’s 1 km to go! Quick-step drills it on the front with some guy in a national champ jersey, perhaps , in second.

And Marcel Kittel (Katusha Alpecin) is going for the line! But then again, who isn’t?! He fades, and now it’s between reigning world champion Sagan and some Quick-step guy. Wow, the Quick-step guy is just flat-out blowing Sagan away in the sprint!

It’s Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) and he’s got the win! 

Man, he’s kind of funny looking. He’s doing the I-just-woke-up-and-am-yawning victory salute, which is a new one.

Marcel Kittel has to settle for third place.

Wow, this peloton is in tatters. Lots of little groups rolling in one by one, perhaps sorted according to how lubed they are. The clean riders will be through in a few minutes.

Here are a couple of EF Education First – Drapac p/b Cannondale riders. That team, in addition to obviously having the least snappy name in the sport, has the ugliest uniforms. It’s like what the Energizer Bunny would look like if we dropped acid. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but neither do the costumes (I dare not call them “kits”).

So the big news today is that Froome finished in a little group like 50 seconds behind the winner. What matters, of course, is how he finished relative to the other GC favorites. I can tell you he was near Richie Porte (Team BMC).

Wow, the ads here are just endless. I’m waiting for the podium ceremony because I want to see how professional these podium girls are. Bike racers should not wear beards. Beards trap too much sweat and saliva. If these ladies can kiss Gaviria’s beard without wincing, I will be very impressed. Unfortunately we’re back to the coverage now and it’s just some dippy Frenchman giving a needless post-race analysis in his silly, impenetrable language.

Oh no, how did I miss grabbing a snapshot of this? Gaviria just got his podium celebration, and the podium girls didn’t kiss him! They just sort of gave him a little wave! Either that or I missed it. Okay, here’s his yellow jersey presentation:

I think she handled that pretty well. She’s a real pro.

OMG, is that Merckx standing there?

Let’s assume it is. That’s pretty cool, though it would be even cooler if he boycotted the race on principle like Bernard Hinault is. (No, I don’t know that he is, but I don’t see him here so I’ll assume that’s what is going on.) Now Gaviria gets his green jersey.

It’s hard to tell from this photo, but she’s not actually kissing him. She’s whispering in his ear, “You really need to shave. It’s more hygienic and also more aerodynamic.”

So here’s another photo of Froome, this time (obviously) at the finish.

Judging by his elbow, he certainly did crash. My god those are ugly jerseys. Is that some kind of sea creature depicted there? I saw this jersey earlier and couldn’t figure out what team it was. Bizarre.

Now Gaviria is having a little cuddle with his new stuffed lion. You know what? I think I like this guy.

This is Gaviria’s first Tour, and surely this evening some teammate, or perhaps several fellow riders, will say, “Uh, dude, you’re not supposed to hang on to the stuffed lion. It’s bad for your rep. You need to find some kid to give it to, pronto. People are saying—not me, mind you, I’m cool with it—but people are saying you’re kind of a mietje [wuss].”

And now, because my actual coverage was so brief and I’d meant to do this anyway (albeit as a separate blog post), here is my analysis of the upcoming general classification battle.

GC pre-race analysis – the top favorites

Christopher Froome, Team Sky - Froome, the best doper of the modern sport, looks unbeatable coming off his decidedly “not normal” performance in the Giro which was more graphically unrealistic than anything Lance Armstrong ever did. His most powerful secret weapon this year is his ability to test positive without being suspended. No other rider in history has managed this feat so blatantly. Still, Froome is still arguably, putatively human and might actually be tired after winning the Giro, so this could be his year to finally lose. He’s still the odds-on favorite and when the press tries to find reasons to doubt him, they have been settling for mentioning threats to his physical security because the French cycling fans are so angry. Froome has tried to placate them, saying, “I love France. The Tour is the most beautiful race in the world.” He should have left it there, but he added, “Nevertheless, being what I am, there is no other Troy for me to burn.” (Note: I added this last part because I think it was implied even if he’s incapable of being so eloquent.)

Rigoberto Uran, EF Education First - Drapac p/b Cannondale - Uran was 2nd in last year’s Tour by a very slim margin. He is a great time trialist. He has been 2nd twice in the Giro. For some reason everybody underestimates him. Maybe it’s because he’s not Froome.

Romain Bardet, Ag2R La Mondiale – Having finished 2nd and 3rd in past Tours, Bardet was 3rd in this year’s Criterium du Dauphiné, which is promising. But then, the French just don’t seem able to win the Tour anymore. Speaking to the press, Bardet was philosophical about his limited prospects in the GC battle. “Cycling is basically Froome’s bitch,” he said. “I hope he eventually gets bored with it and moves on to something else, like insider trading maybe.” (He may or may not have actually said this. I might have mistranslated him, or perhaps he didn’t actually even open his mouth.)

Richie Porte, Team BMC – Porte is a great doper, who really learned a lot at Sky. He won this year’s Tour de Suisse so it looks like his pharmaceutical program is going pretty well. Still, he seems to have problems holding it all together. His best Tour finish was 5th in 2016, and he dropped out last year. He dropped out of the Giro in 2015. In the 2014 Tour, he took over as leader after Froome crashed and bruised one of his nipples. Porte seemed to buckle under the pressure (of being the team leader, not of having a teammate with a bruised nipple). As team leader he finished a very disappointing 23rd place. Still, he is a strong rider, often eerily, not-normally strong, so he’s got a solid shot here.

Tom Dumoulin, Sunweb – Dumoulin is of course last year’s Giro d’Italia winner, and did great at this year’s Giro as well. He looked poised to win again, but in the end couldn’t handle Froome’s doping prowess. Assuming both riders are tired from the Giro, only Froome will be able to ride well; Dumoulin, who appears to be clean, is probably going to get crushed. Only his youth could save him: he was born in, I shit you not, November 1990. DAMN do I feel old.

Vincenzo Nibali, Bahrain-Merida - Nibali has a good team, has won all three grand tours, won this year’s Milan-San Remo, and maybe didn’t totally kill himself at the Giro (placing 5th).  He’s highly motivated to beat Froome after their very public spat in the 2015 Tour, when Froome whined post-race like a little bitch after Nibali won the stage. (Click here for details.)

Nairo Quintana, Movistar - Quintana has been on the Tour podium three times, and won a stage of this year’s Tour de Suisse. He has won both of the other Grand Tours. He also comes from a poor farming family so he has lots of character. Unfortunately, character is no match for doping products, and Quintana lost more than 15 minutes to Froome in last year’s Tour. I am really rooting for Quintana because he has had the decency to speak out (albeit mildly) against Froome. Asked about Tour fans booing the emaciated cheater, Quintana said, “Sometimes you reap what you sow.” (Since I am often unable to resist putting words in riders’ mouths, I must emphasize that he really said this.

Adam Yates, Mitchelston-Scott – Yates  is quite good, though he might cook in the black jersey he’s required to wear. He took 4th and best young rider at the 2016 Tour. Last year he kind of faded. This year he was 2nd in the Criterium du Dauphiné, which suggests good form. When baited about Froome being booed at the team presentation, he remained diplomatic. “The fans booed and it’s the media’s job to cover that. Hopefully Froome is tired after the Giro. I hope the Giro took its toll, and who knows, maybe during this Tour he’ll get a bad blood bag or something.” No, he didn’t really say anything about a bad blood bag. At least not out loud.

Mikel Landa, Movistar - Landa will have to compete with teammate Quintana. Fortunately, he has plenty of practice beating up his own team members as he did with Sky (which I thought was charming; click here for details).

Ilnur Zakarin, Katusha Alpecin – Zakarin is pretty much a badass. He was third in the Vuelta once, and 5th in the Giro. Also, he uses caffeinated shampoo. Which is legal.

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Biased Blow-by-Blow - Tour de France Stage 12

Introduction

As I’ve blogged before, there’s a benefit to bike race coverage that doesn’t try to be unbiased or fair.  Sports fans have their favorites and so should commentators.

At the end of my last post I declared that I was done with watching the Tour de France.  But I actually got some protests from by biking pals, mainly to the effect of “Don’t stop writing—watch the Tour so we won’t have to!”  So in that spirit, I tuned in to today’s coverage of a flat sprinters’ stage.

Biased blow-by-blow – Tour de France Stage 12

As I join there’s 20K to go, with a breakaway of four 36 seconds ahead of the peloton.  In other words, I’ve missed nothing.  Juan Antonio Flecha is in this break, but do you really care?  The gap is now down to 28 seconds in the time I took typing that.  And I’m a pretty fast typist.

It’s nice how with cycling you can join late and still get the gist of the race.  In contrast, consider your average American ball game.  The sports fan tunes in an hour or more ahead of time, even more if it’s a big game.  He watches an endless pre-game show, during which he consumes probably most of the 2,000 calories that the federal government recommends for the whole day. Why didn’t I say his/her?  Because women don’t watch ball sports.  Not really.  Some of them fake it, to try to please their boyfriends, but it’s a charade.  Do women watch bike racing?  I have no idea.  They sure aren’t watching it just because the race leader is hunky or something.

Every time Sean Kelly fields a question from his Eurosport co-commentator, he starts his response with “Yes.”  Now, Declan is no fool—he would never ask a simple yes/no question because then the entire response would be that one word.  But he’ll say, “Belkin has become the kind of team we’re always seeing on the front, why would you say that is?”  Kelly replies, “Yes ... the pace is very high and they’re making sure they keep their riders out of trouble.”  As a racer, Kelly was famously quiet—the only rider known to answer questions with a head nod during a radio interview.  I’m now picturing him, in his early days as a commentator, on the couch working with a therapist who helpfully suggests, “You can always say ‘yes.’  That should get things started.”

There’s not much to report about this race.  It’s a simple, straight, wide, flat course on a nice sunny day.  The breakaway is mostly over, with just one guy still up the road, getting free publicity, getting his five minutes on TV simply because the camera is obliged to cover any breakaways, no matter how doomed.  Have you ever seen a speed-walking race?  It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.  I think they used to have it in the Olympics even.  There are strict rules preventing you from going faster—that is, to make sure you’re still technically walking.  I always fantasized about getting really good at it, just to make the Olympic team, and then on the big day I’d let myself fall behind a bit and then break into a full run, easily blowing past everybody and making a mockery of the entire event.  And you know what that would remind all you cycling fans of?  Yes.  Chris Froome mocking the sport of cycling with his synchronized-doping team and his little training island and his double helping of secret sauce.

This is a great stage to watch because I’m pretty sure a born climber who dopes can only fake it in time trials.  So I don’t see Froome soloing today.  I don’t think I could handle that again.  (Yes, I skipped the time trial stage entirely.)

You know, Flecha is taking the gap back up again.  It’s at 22 seconds now. He’s got his wrists draped over the tops of the bars, hands wrapped backward around the brake levers.  I think he got this idea from watching somebody on the Stairmaster at the gym, instinctively adopting the most efficient position, which on the Stairmaster means paddling her legs uselessly over the steps while supporting her weight on her wrists.

It’s 7K to go and the peloton is hovering just behind Flecha, maybe 10 seconds, toying him like a cat with a snake.  I suppose something crazy could happen and he could ... never mind, he’s caught.

Saxo-Tinkoff is massing at the front “to keep Contador out of trouble.”  Well guess what, Alberto ... you’re already in trouble.  The detente has been disrupted, the power has shifted, and Sky has the bomb.

5K to go and Declan is talking about “pure, undiluted” sprinters.  Is “undiluted” a doping reference?  As a bike club pal pointed out recently, Paul Sherwen was commentating on the time trial the other day and said, “You have to dose your efforts....”

An Orica-Greenedge guy at the very front of the peloton just stacked in a fairly gentle curve.  It was crazy, his front tire just washed right out.  I’d like to find out what brand of tire he’s using and ban that company for life.

Sylvain Chavanel (Omega-Pharma) is on the front, easy to see with his orange bike.

“Argos-Shimano are going to inject the hyper-pace!” Declan says.  Where did Eurosport get this guy?

Whoah, another pileup.  Man, it’s just an amazing tangle of bikes and limbs.  That’s got to hurt.  What a mess.

Greipel has lost his lead-out men.  It’s Omega-Pharma and Argos-Shimano on the front.  Froome is only about ten spots back—maybe he feels just that good today, to go for another stage win?  And next year he’ll try kick-boxing?

It’s less than 1K to go!  Everybody looks really tired, bigger gaps than usual opening up in this field sprint, but they’re still flying.

Oh no!  My feed is blocked!

“That was amazing!” Declan yells.  I’ll have to take his word for it.

Okay, here’s the replay.  It looks like Kittel edged Cavendish at the line with his bike throw.  Kittel does a unique victory salute, an underhanded sweeping motion, that looks like a little kid flinging water in the tub to make a big mess for his parents.

I really wish I got to watch that sprint.  I mean, I bothered to show up half an hour in advance, all to see this final handful of seconds, and instead I just got a pop-up ad. 

Wow.  Just saw another replay of the sprint, from above.  There’s no doubt about it, Kittel overpowered Cavendish.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before ... sure, Cav has failed to win, but usually because his lead-out got screwed up or something, not due to simply being less fast.  This time Cav had a straight shot for the line and was well ahead, but Kittel just came around him.  I’d never even heard of Kittel before this Tour and now he’s won three stages.

By the way, the racers came in about twenty minutes ahead of schedule today.  I can’t believe they were all too busy to text me and let me know.  I could have missed the finish!  Oh, wait ... I did miss the finish.

Kittel is being interviewed:  “I had to go on his wheel to went for my sprint and I started my sprint then.  It was close.”  It’s tempting to take shots at Kittel’s English, but actually I would make no more sense, even in my native tongue, after an exertion like that.  He continues, “I would like to dedicate the team to ... to decicate to my team this win.  I really love my team.”  Awwwwww.

Now the Lotto manager is being interviewed:  “Greipel was behind him and he stayed still, so it’s over.  I don’t talk to a time for anybody....  It’s difficult but we are have our own train, and it’s over for us.”  This time I am really, really tempted to take shots at his English, but then again, I couldn’t handle an interview in a foreign language, not even in French though I studied it for years.

My wife comes over just in time to see a replay of the big crash.  “They look so vulnerable, on the ground,” she says wistfully, no doubt thinking back to my big crash.  Perhaps this isn’t the greatest timing for her to take a peek at the race.  Why couldn’t she see Kittel’s victory salute, so replete with childlike glee?  Now it’s an interview with Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega-Pharma), I have no idea why, and Erin expresses her utter disgust at his thinness in such graphic terms she’s forbidden me to quote her.  “If you looked like that...” she continues, with the edge in her voice that keeps me in the ice cream.

Roland gets another polka-dot climber’s jersey.  He has matching shorts, white with red polka-dots, and looks absolutely idiotic.  He reminds me of that weird doglike thing in “Put Me In The Zoo!” (remember that book?).

So, I’ve heard it said that a real pocket-climber can be distinguished by the size of his wrists.  Try this:  touch the tip of your index finger to the tip of your thumb.  The circle that makes will easily wrap around the ankle of a pocket-climber.  Is Froome a true pocket-climber?  Well, looking at him on the podium just now I realized I could easily wrap my thumb and index finger around his calf.  Can pocket-climbers excel at time trials?  Sure, if they’re coked to the gills on the sweet PEDs!  Just look at Tyler Hamilton, Alberto Contador, and Levi Leipheimer....

Froome is being interviewed.  He is blinking continuously.  I wouldn’t think anything of this if he weren’t one of the great liars in sport right now, already giving performances that are Amstrongian in their boldness (though nowhere near as realistic).  I’m not going to quote anything Froome has said because it was utterly dull and without substance.

One of my blow-by-blow readers (my mom, to be precise) has sent in a comment:  “Kittel sure looks like an übermensch. I feel sorry for Cavendish.”  I replied, “Cav has 24 Tour de France stage wins, and over 100 career wins, and he’s still pretty young, so we shouldn’t feel too bad for him. Maybe this new competition (from Kittel and also Sagan) will be the shot in the arm he needs.”  Right after hitting Enter I became aware of my unintentional—or was it merely subconscious?—pun.  Actually, I distrust sprinters less than GC riders.  It’s one of the reasons I bothered to watch today’s race at all.

Biased Blow-by-Blow - Tour de France Stage 1

Introduction

As I’ve blogged before, there’s a benefit to bike race coverage that is far from unbiased and fair.  Sports fans have their favorites and so should commentators.  So I woke up early this morning to give a blow-by-blow account of today’s Tour de France opening stage.  I gave this account to nobody, because my normal audience apparently wasn’t online.  Well, if they thought this would be a humdrum sprinter’s stage without any real excitement until the last kilometer, they guessed wrong.  Read on for a blow-by-blow account of one of the most bizarre Tour de France stages in decades.

Biased blow-by-blow – Tour de France Stage 1

As I join, the British Eurosport commentator (Declan, I think) is saying “Omega Pharma know how to marshal a run-in” and “I’m not so very fond of this team’s livery.”  And now, “We’re going to take a break, as the cows munch on their buttercups.”  So different from American football announcers whose most flowery language is something like “This ball club knows how to get the job done and move that ball up the gridiron.”

The great thing is, even when the announcers take a break, the coverage continues.  It’s just quiet and I can decide for myself what’s going on.

My feed has already died, two minutes into my coverage.  Okay, “Refresh” is my friend.

Now they’re showing footage of some weird watercraft with a crazy parachute-like sail.  I guess it’s like an ultra-light, a hang-glider with raft attached.  Presumably it’ll lose control and crash into the peloton at some point.  Why else would they be showing it?

My cat is now polluting her cat box, rendering my work area uninhabitable.  Thank goodness for Wi-Fi ... if she’s done #2 I’ll have to relocate.  I wonder if the Hotsy Totsy Club would show this race?  It’s certainly the kind of bar that would be open right now.

The whole peloton is together now.  It’s 18K to go.  They’re riding along the coast of Corsica.  My kids were astonished to learn that the race starts on an Italian island.  (My older daughter reads almanacs all the time and needed no explaining about what Corsica is.)  I was equally astonished that anything I could say about the Tour de France would be even remotely interesting to anybody in my family.

This feed isn’t very hi-res.  The faces are just blurs, like those weird plastic faces of the schoolkids in “Pink Floyd The Wall.”

Whoah, somebody ran right into the fencing!  It’s Johnny Hoogerland.  He looks okay, but is probably embarrassed, not just to have crashed but to have a name like Hoogerland.  At school they probably called him Boogerland.  Oh, wait, “Booger” probably isn’t an international term.  That said, this is the same guy who crashed into a barbed wire fence a couple years back; one more crazy mishap and “Hooger” will become a verb meaning “to crash into something.”  I may start using it now, actually:  “Man, I hit this huge bump on the descent and for a second thought I was going to totally Hooger!”  It has a nice similarity to “auger” so the phrase “Hooger in” also presents itself for consideration.

Cadel Evans is right near the front.  His teammates are keeping him safe.  I’ll bet you thought I was going to say “henchmen,” didn’t you?  Naw.

It’s another crash!  I hope nobody blames the race promoters, because it happened on a dead-straight section.  If Andy Schleck had gone down he’d surely complain about unsafe conditions.  Hesjedal is involved!  By which I mean he has been part of this general Hoogerage.  What was he doing so far back, in the chaff of the pack?

Oh man, the Orica-Greenedge bus has gotten stuck under the finish line banner!  They’re afraid to move it because it might tear down the finish banner.  Some wily teamwork from this team, I expect ... an ingenious strategy to confuse the other teams with a totally screwed-up final sprint.

It’s crazy, they officials have shortened the stage by 3K because of the stranded van!  The new finish line is the banner declaring 3K to go!

This has thrown the teams’ strategies into chaos.

Cannondale is at the front going for broke.  Orica Green-Edge is right up there, surely all according to plan.  They must have studied the parcours 3K from the finish and mapped out their approach perfectly.

The new finish line isn’t exactly on a straightaway.  Terrible place for a finish, and of course none of the timing equipment, photo-finish cameras, etc. will be set up. 

The bus is suddenly freed!

  

Oh man, there’s been a huge pileup!  It was all chaos because they abruptly announced they were putting the finish line back to its original spot, and a bunch of dudes stacked.  See?  It’s just like talking on a cell phone while driving—your attention cannot be properly shared between sensory inputs.  Chavanel seemed to hit the fencing.  Sagan is down, Cavendish is down!

“Goodness gracious me, what a mess!”  says the Eurosport commentator.  I wonder what it takes to get a British announcer to cuss?

It’s a bizarre situation.  Andre Greipel is standing on the side of the road, presumably with a mechanical issue.  So many big favorites aren’t represented in the lead group now.

Shimano-Argos is bunched at the front, so you know the normal order has been totally thrown out the window. 

They’re on the final stretch, a ton of white Shimano-Argos jerseys.  There’s a bit of a climb here and it’s really sludging things up.  Can I coin a verb?  To sludge?

Steegmans has launched early!  It’s a totally crazy move!  He’s totally flying even though his handlebars are like stupid touring bars, Randonneurs, from the ‘80s! My mom had those bars!

Oh man, it’s not to be, they’ve overhauled him.  I’ll bet they just couldn’t stand to see those horrible handlebars up the road.

“Goodness me, it’s a hellish run to the line!” says Declan.  There, he cussed!

It’s a Shimano-Argos guy who wins!  I never even learned his name!  It’s like a bridesmaid somehow body-checking the bride right off the altar!  And his helmet, cosmetically, is the equivalent of a bridesmaid dress—that is, it’s deliberately ugly, the kind with no vents anywhere!  Absolutely nuts.

Okay, the winner was Kittel, who seems to have been named after a brand of cat food. 

A bunch of Cannondale riders come over the line, pretty far after the winner.  I’m guessing the officials will give all the riders the same time (well, except Hoogerland).

Kittel looks so happy, I almost can’t bear to make fun of his name and his helmet.  What kind of jerk am I?  But enough about me.  This is Kittel’s first Tour victory and he is beyond stoked.  I’ll bet he finds that Orica-Greenedge van driver later and shakes his hand!

They just showed the super-slo-mo of the sprint, and man, Kittel really had a great sprint—he blew by several other dudes (none of them the favorites, of course, as the favorites were still untangling themselves 3K behind).

This hahabar.com feed has crapped out several times during my coverage.  I am not amused.  My free entertainment should be flawless!

They’re saying that the big crash happened before they restored the original finish line, which means it was within the final 3K of the finish at that moment, so even though it was more than 3K from the actual, ultimate finish line, all those riders should get the same time.  If the race officials don’t come to this conclusion, you can well expect a mass mutiny from the guys who crashed.

“I expect Cavendish has had the stuffing knocked out of him, but we’ll surely see him in contention on the final Corsica stage in two days’ time.”  I guess this Declan guy isn’t so bad.  I use that stuffing expression all the time, having come across it in a British book about race mechanics, but I don’t actually get to hear it all that often.

It’s unbelievable how chaotic everything is.  They’re having to kill lots of time because it’s impossible to sort out all the jersey winners, I expect.  In all the confusion nobody seems able to come up with Kittel’s first name.  The cyclingnews blow-by-blow guy hasn’t found it yet.  I need a bigger monitor so I can have the start list up here.  Hang on.  Okay, it’s Marcel Kittel, of Germany.  He is so happy.

The podium girls are in yellow and black.  I think it’s supposed to be a Powerbar theme, but it makes me think of Livestrong.  Surely this cannot have been anybody’s intention.

The coverage has ended and I’m into “Tour de France Extra.”  Sean Kelly is being interviewed live.  He looks absolutely the same as he did in the ‘80s.  “To hear suddenly on the race radio that the finish line has changed again ... I think there was a lot of panic in the peloton,” he says.  “Shimano-Argos took advantage of the situation ... it was a dream day for them.”  Yeah, like one of those weird dreams where your dog can talk, and everybody is in pajamas.

The points competition podium girls are in bright apple green, like the points jersey, of course, but also continuing my bridesmaid dress conceit.  It’s not a great color for any woman but they’re pulling it off somehow.  Pure professionalism.

They’re showing the replays of that final sprint.  I love it when it’s a good, close win and the winner couldn’t have predicted his success, and thus doesn’t have some overly complicated victory salute.  Just a classic arms-up.

Kittel gets the white jersey for best young rider.  The podium girls for this have Kelly green trim on their white dresses, which is sartorially inexcusable but also somewhat necessary because they can’t afford to be mistaken for brides.

Okay, this color-coordination of podium girl dresses has got to stop.  White dresses with red polka-dots?  I haven’t seen such gross fashion misconduct since Sha Na Na appeared on “Hee Haw” back in the ‘70s and sang “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.”  That I remember this should tell you how much it scarred me.

Word has come down that the bus incident was ultimately a result of politics.  The French union responsible for sorting out such matters went out on strike because any work involving the finish line banner is supposed to be done hours before the finish, and the request to disentangle it from the van’s roof came during their cigarette break.  They were apparently offended at the suggestion that they interrupt their normal routines—almost as offended as a French waiter is when a stupid American tourist actually wants his order taken or something.  All this must come as a relief to the van driver, who will ultimately be thought of as a mere pawn caught in a deadly game.

(Yes, that whole preceding paragraph was pure fiction, unless I’ve accidentally stumbled on the truth.)

Kittel is being interviewed, but he only speaks German.  The British announcer is pretending to translate:  “I wasn’t sure during the race that I could win.  It was very confusing toward the end.  I am very surprised to be in yellow and I would like to thank my team.”  I’m sure that what he’s saying actually bears no resemblance to this.  I’m going to “translate” it myself:  “What, a bus got stuck under the finish line?  I didn’t know that!  I thought I just dropped all the sprinters in the final kilometer!”

Oh, he’s speaking English now.  “The team did a great job, they kept me out of trouble, so big thanks to them.”  Wow, I guess that British announcer really does speak German!  And amazingly, Kittel actually is claiming absolutely no knowledge of the situation with the bus!  I wonder what he thought happened to Cavendish, Greipel, et al?

The moral of the story?  Put away your race radio and focus on what you’re doing!  It obviously worked for Kittel, and I trust I don’t need to spell out the smartphone analogy....

They’re interviewing some Lotto guy and he’s predictably disappointed about how things went.  But I really want an interview with that bus driver!  Think back to the very first thing I heard this morning from the Eurosport commentator:  “Omega Pharma know how to marshal a run-in.”  It’s too bad the same can’t be said for the actual race marshals....