Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2020 Tour de France Stage 15

Introduction

This is my live* blow-by-blow report of Stage 15 of the 2020 Tour de France, from Lyon to Grand Colombier. Why the asterisk? Well, I’m watching live, but you came later. Why did you do that? Because it’s 5:40 a.m. and you’re wisely asleep as I watch this race. Good call. Plus, you don’t just want to watch the coverage and try to make sense of it … you want my commentary, even if it becomes snide and accusatory at times, right?

Check out this profile. It’s gonna be an epic day.

Tour de France Stage 15 – Lyon to Grand Colombier

As I join the action, Phil Liggett is talking about the scenery and some abbey. Bob Roll joins in and mentions the abbey is famous for their aperitifs. This might not seem important to you, but it means a lot to me: it means the riders aren’t on the first major climb yet. That’s huge. When I’m not quite awake, it’s jarring to have to try to makes sense of what’s going on.

There’s a breakaway of eight riders, with a 4:32 gap on the peloton. The only good general classification rider in it, as far as I can tell, is Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept). But he sits 18th on GC, over 34 minutes back.

They’re showing a start line interview they filmed earlier with Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), the sensational American super-domestique. He’s had an awesome (albeit short) season so far, winning a stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné last month, and riding superbly for his team leader, Primoz Roglic, who leads the GC by 44 seconds over his Slovenian countryman, the teenager Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates). Okay, Pogacar isn’t actually a teenager, but he looks like he’s about 14. Anyway, here’s some of the Kuss Interview:

INTERVIEWER: It is a big day today, can you divulge your strategy so that other teams can hear it?

KUSS: Blah blah blah [banal generalities because he’s not an idiot] blah blah blah.

INTERVIEWER: Will you adopt the same strategy you used in the Tour de l’An, on  some of this same terrain?

KUSS: Actually, I didn’t race the Tour de l’An [you fricking idiot].

INTERVIEWER: It’s your birthday today, right?

KUSS: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What would be your ideal birthday present?

KUSS: I know you want me to say something about defending Primoz’s lead and stuff, but actually I’ve had my eye on a nice electric tea kettle. I found one that is reputed to be efficient, quiet, and has no plastic parts.

The breakaway has broken up a bit. Now the three leaders are Rolland, Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), and Simon Geschke (CCC Team). I’m not grabbing a photo because that’s just too difficult. If these guys stay off, I’ll have more chances later.

Damn, look at this sweet mullet!

Notably, that fan alongside him is almost wearing his mask properly ... at least it’s covering his mouth. A lot of fans have totally fallen down here—you see them with their masks around their necks, screaming their heads off four feet away from our heroes like fricking idiots. Fortunately, the ASO race organizers are banning spectators from the last two climbs. Finally.

The breakaway—I’ll tell you who’s in it in a moment—has just reached the base of the first major climb, the Montée de la Selle de Fromentel (which translates to “climb of the wheat saddle” … whatever, dudes). It’s a beast … check out the stats.

Why are they mixing English and metric units in this graphic? Kilometers for distance, feet for elevation? Look guys, either go one way or the other. This is silly. Who is your putative audience? And do you even know what “putative” means? Are you even reading this? Who are you, anyway?

Now they’re showing a pre-race interview from earlier today with Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo), who sits 9th on GC, only a couple minutes back.

INTERVIEWER: You’re having a great Tour.

PORTE: I resent the unspoken “for a change” in your sentence.

INTERVIEWER: No, it was just an innocent observation.

PORTE: Don’t give me that. You’re commenting on how for once I’m not collapsing psychologically like a little bitch.

INTERVIEWER: Don’t put words in my mouth.

PORTE: You’re alluding to my previous years as a team leader when my competitors destroyed me like dropping an anvil on a house of cards or Godzilla squashin’ a crouton with combat boots on or droppin’ a goddamn nuke bomb on top of an ant hill.

INTERVIEWER: I’m saying no such thing. But your recall of Eminem lyrics is impressive.

The breakaway is two kilometers from the summit of this climb. Herrada is falling off the pace.

OMG, Team Ineos loses two of its important support riders!

Okay, it’s not as bad as I thought. The announcers said it was Richard Carapaz, the star from Ecuador who won last year’s Giro d’Italia, but it’s actually just Dylan van Baarle and Andrey Amador. I’m not familiar with these guys so they couldn’t be important, could they?

The American Tejay Van Garderen (EF – Education First Pro Cycling) is dropped.

They’re showing an earlier interview with George Bennett, another Jumbo-Visma domestique.

INTERVIEWER: What is your team’s strategy?

BENNETT: Obviously Ineos has to take the fight to us.

INTERVIEWER: It’s clearly a brutal course today. Are you concerned?

BENNETT: I’m really just trying to survive this horrible infestation of ear mites.

INTERVIEWER: Since when do humans get ear mites? That’s disgusting.

BENNETT: Tell me about it.

Herrada takes max KOM points on the wheat saddle climb, further distancing Herrada.

At the front of the peloton, Michal Kwiatkowski, probably the best domestique on Team Ineos, takes a feed. I’m glad he’s still up there … the way that his team leader, Egan Bernal, has been riding—that is, very well but not brilliantly—we need him to have some support lest this Tour get boring.

To catch you up on what’s been going on since my last report, Team Jumbo-Visma has been doing an awesome job for Roglic, who has chipped away here and there at Bernal. Roglic’s closest rival now appears to be Pogacar, though youth and inexperience, combined with a weak team, will make things tough for him. Pogacar’s best domestique, Fabio Aru, oddly bailed on the Tour with no explanation. But Pogacar looks incredibly strong.

Huh, the stage leader now seems to be Michael Gogl (NTT Pro Cycling), who must have passed the other three leaders on the descent. You can see the stats of this next climb, the Col de la Biche (translation: “ascent of the bitch”).

The motorcycle commentator is talking about Carapaz and Amador just trying to latch back on to the peloton. So I guess my steephill.tv roster is incorrect and it really was Carapaz dropped on the last climb. That’s surprising … he’s normally so good. Ah, they’re saying he crashed earlier in the stage.

Poor Thibaut Pinot. He’s barely hanging on the back of the peloton … this is just not his year. (But then, we’re all having a pretty crappy 2020, innit?)

They’re saying Amador caught back up, so Ineos has five guys in the group. But Kwiatkoski is visiting the team car for what appears to be medical attention (and no, I don’t mean doping, though he is on Ineos). I hope Kwiatkowski is good today. Carapaz still hasn’t rejoined.

At the front of the GC group, Jumbo-Visma is controlling things with a pretty brutal pace, led by Robert Gesink.

In the breakaway, Rolland is drilling it, dropping his companions (perhaps without realizing it).

We just have word from the NTT Pro Cycling team car that Gogl is not related to the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. You might say that the spelling gives that away, but remember that “Gogol” is just the phonetic equivalent of the Cyrillic “гоголь” in our alphabet. It’s really too bad this racer isn’t related to the author of “The Overcoat” and “The Nose.” I was hoping finally to interest my younger daughter in this race. She loves Russian lit and couldn’t care less about cycling … so my parenting work is only half done.

As Gogl reaches the 2km to go point, Rolland has caught him. I’m not sure how important this is because the peloton is only a couple minutes back.

Phil asks Christian Vande Velde, a fellow commentator, if the breakaway has a chance. “No,” Vande Velde replies. (I’m paraphrasing.)

Oh dear. Ineos is losing another domestique, the Russian powerhouse Pavel Sivakov.

Rolland has dropped Gogl, thus officially dooming Gogl’s breakaway dreams and his own. They’ve got 49 km to race and no way can either of them last all by himself for that long. I guess Rolland is just going for KOM points. Or maybe he hopes Gogl and Herrada can catch back up. (I refuse to say “get back on terms” because a) it’s hackneyed, and b) I don’t even really understand how it’s supposed to mean anything.)

Okay, the trio have come back together. Look at the crazy ratio of support vehicles to riders. Such a nice gesture when this breakaway almost certainly has no chance.

OMG, NBC just showed a flashback to a crash Rolland had on a descent at some point in the past. Freaked my shit out. He was carving a curve perfectly and his bike just slipped out from under him for no apparent reason. This does happen. It happened to me back in May, in fact, and to two other riders who happened to come by as I was sorting myself out. Sometimes the road surface is just slippery. The crazy thing is, I never grasped this until I became a 40-something and a dad. Prior to that, I descended as though nothing bad could happen, and it almost never did. When I crashed it was because of a puncture or something. How could I have been so naïve? Or did my naïvety protect me somehow, in which case the danger wasn’t real and there was nothing to be naïve about? I better exit this paradox before I lose my focus completely and stop paying attention to the race.

Herrada has been dropped on the descent. Could he have seen that crash replay somehow? Did his directeur sportif hear the commentary and warn him? Or is his mom communicating telepathically?

Note the ticker at the bottom of that frame: Van Garderen is over two and a half hours down on GC. Can you believe he took fifth overall in the Tour, twice? That’s age for you. I can relate. My shoulder hurts. I feel old. Damn.

Since nothing important is happening on this descent, and I’m already getting dark, let’s take a moment to talk about the problem of concussions in pro cycling. In Phil Gaimon’s cycling memoir Draft Animals, he describes how he crashed in a stage race and knew he had a concussion, but also knew his self-diagnosis would not be taken seriously if his helmet wasn’t broken. That was the only criterion his imbecilic team medic would accept as evidence. So as he sat in the team van during the drive down from the mountaintop finish, he put his helmet between his thighs and squeezed until he cracked it. Why should that be necessary?

A bigger problem is that riders don’t get checked out after a crash … if they think they’re okay, they just climb back on their bikes and resume the effort. The NBC commentators discussed this during yesterday’s coverage, and showed footage of France’s last GC hope for this race, Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale), getting up after a crash in stage 13. He gets to his feet, loses his balance, wobbles, and falls down. This happens a second time (I think … unless they just showed it twice) but nobody notices in the chaos around him, and he eventually gets back on his bike. (You can see the footage here.) Bardet finished the stage before his concussion was discovered. That is so dangerous, as the brain is really vulnerable after being concussed.

Wow, that is all so depressing! Don’t worry, we’ll put it all behind us when the final climb starts and things pick up. It’s a brutal climb, about 11 km long and gaining 1,265 meters (that’s 6.8 miles with 4,150 feet for you patriots).

Bob Roll says, “We’ve just been told they have a tailwind. That really benefits the stronger riders.” At first blush this seems like an absurd assertion. Doesn’t a tailwind make it easier for everyone? On closer inspection it would seem to only benefit the weaker riders at the back, since the front riders are getting kind of a reverse draft since the wind is blocked from them. But I guess if there were a headwind instead, the riders at the front would be slowed by it, with those in back sheltered. So maybe it makes sense. I’m freed to ponder this because the footage has been suspended by ads for a while. I have absorbed the ads for Zwift, Rocket Mortgage, and Geico so many times, I’ve developed a towering hatred for these companies and their products and would never even consider buying them. But I guess it worked … they managed to get their names up on albertnet, guaranteeing a massive digital marketing benefit as they soar to the top of search queries. Well played, you bastards.

Rolland and Gogl have actually extended their lead, up now to 1:44. It’s tempting to think this means something, but the GC group is still pretty large so clearly the hammer hasn’t gone down yet. These guys are still doomed.

Oh, no. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) has had a mechanical problem and now Herrada drops back to help drag him back to the group before the climb begins. Martin had a mechanical yesterday and lost a bunch of time. Poor dude. It’s odd: these modern bikes have thru-axles, like mountain bikes, which makes wheel changes really slow. I cannot imagine why they adopted that technology.

Rolland drops Gogl as he realizes he better pick things up. Do you need a photo of that? No, it’s really not that important, trust me.

The pace is going up as they tackle the hors categorie final climb, the fearsome Grand Colombier. Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) is going out the back. Martin has suffered the indignity in this Tour of having his past exploits ignored. At least twice, Liggett has said that the recent stage win by Sam Bennett (Deceunink – Quick-Step) was the first by an Irishman since Stephen Roche in 1987. This is completely untrue as Martin has won two stages, the most recent being in 2018. I’m glad to have set the record straight here in case you have been watching that coverage.

Woah, Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) is getting dropped!

And now Bernal is going out the back! I can’t believe it!

Bernal’s teammates drop back to pace him. This is crazy.

At the front, Wout van Aert mashes the pedals for Jumbo-Visma, to do maximum damage to Bernal and Quintana.

Bernal takes a bottle. Presumably it’s full of whiskey, to start drowning his sorrows. He looks truly miserable. He’s lost a minute already. Liggett says, “He’s living his own private nightmare.” Um, actually, this nightmare is pretty public.

It doesn’t look like Pogacar has any teammates left. He’d better hope he doesn’t have a problem. He’ll be getting ready to attack, of course.

Fewer than 10 km to go. Van Aert detonates and heads toward the back.

George Bennett takes up the pacemaking for Jumbo-Visma.

I just ran away for a minute to wake up my older daughter. She is now miserable because a) she’s awake before 10 a.m., and b) I told her about Quintana being dropped. He’s like her favorite racer, but there’s no way I’m letting him marry her if he doesn’t get his act together. (Oh, wait, he’s married already anyway. I hope his family isn’t watching today.)

Yates attacks!

Bennett blows and falls back, clawing to try to stay on. Tom Dumoulin takes over for Jumbo-Visma.

Yates is getting a pretty good gap!

Back in the chase, Bernal is really suffering. He looks kind of dazed. Kwiatkowski paces him.

My online correspondent, normally very insightful (his last comment being, “Ineos can eat shit .. fuk them”) says, “We don’t have great hitting. We need Eva and Megan back!” He’s apparently multi-tasking at his kid’s baseball game. Wrong chat, dude!

With 4 km to go, Jumbo Visma is in complete control. Pogacar really needs to attack, unless he wants to wait until a later stage since he has no team to defend a yellow jersey. Best bet would be to take time (especially with the bonus) but not enough to get yellow yet.

Before this Tour started, my daughter predicted Roglic would win the GC. “Having Dumoulin as a domestique is, like, the biggest flex,” she declares. True, true. Look at the brutal pitches ahead of these guys.

Roglic attacks!

His rivals easily cover it. That was a bit premature. Kuss moves to the front and shelters his leader to give him another shot in a few moments.

And now Porte goes for it! It’s an awesome move!

Alas for him, he can’t make it stick against this elite GC group. And now Pogacar attacks!

Roglic reacts immediately, but simply doesn’t have the legs. Pogacar holds him off and gets the win!

The rest of this Tour could get interesting … there’s a time trial coming up, and Pogachar did beat Roglic in the Slovenian national time trial championship earlier this season.

Wow, what an amazing stage. Van Aert put up such a blistering pace, he destroyed the hopes of two major GC threats in Quintana and Bernal.

Here are the stage result and the new GC:

There’s a silver lining to Pogacar’s loss of 1:21 in an earlier flat stage when he missed a split: if it weren’t for that, he’d have been leading the GC for several days already, with no team. Perhaps it’s better to let Jumbo Visma do an amazing job controlling the race so Pogacar can strike later.

Now Bernal finishes, looking desolate, like seven minutes down. Poor kid. I hate Team Ineos and all, they can basically blow me, but maybe it’s not his fault he ended up on a squad that, for all their doping prowess, can’t adjust their strategies when they don’t have an unstoppable wind-up doll like Froome to install in the field to pummel everyone to death.

They’re interviewing Pogacar.

INTERVIEWER: I’m not going to ask anything specific because you’re gonna say what you’re gonna say anyway, so just say something.

POGACAR: Jumbo set the pace really high, and the heat made it really difficult, in the end I was waiting for sprint, I am so happy to win again. Jumbo was really prepared today and from my point of view there was no reason to attack.

INTERVIEWER: You pronounce Jumbo with a “J” sound instead of a “Y” sound even though it’s a Dutch brand. Why is that?

POGACAR: …

INTERVIEWER: Can you beat Roglic?

POGACAR: Today Bernal cracked, maybe one day I can crack, or Roglic.

INTERVIEWER: When you say you can “crack,” do you mean that as a transitive verb, the implied direct object being Roglic? Or do you mean in the intransitive sense, that you could falter?

POGACAR: What the hell are you talking about?

I like how the Covid masks inflate and deflate as these guys talk, as they’re still catching their breath several minutes after the finish. I also like how Pogacar always has shocks of hair sticking out of his helmet vents. My hair used to do that, back when I had more hair.

Now they interview Roglic.

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t win a stage but I think I see a smile under that mask anyway.

ROGLIC: Actually, I never smile. I might be a robot. But yeah, like I said, the guys were flying today, and yeah, so far we are doing a great job in the Tour.

INTERVIEWER: You just said “like I said,” but you hadn’t said anything yet. What’s that about?

ROGLIC: I was talking earlier to the stuffed lion that I will be given soon. Just kind of making friends.

INTERVIEWER: It must give you great confidence having this great team around you.

ROGLIC: Fans complain that I’m boring in interviews, but you ask really stupid questions. Work with me here.

INTERVIEWER: You lost four seconds today. Are you livid about that?

ROGLIC: For sure it would be better that I gain four seconds. In fact, what if I gained 40 seconds? Four minutes? I’m so bored right now I could cry … will you please ask something interesting, or get that mic out of my face?

INTERVIEWER: Would you say this race isn’t over?

ROGLIC: No, it is not. Tomorrow is a rest day.

INTERVIEWER: Bernal lost several minutes, you must be happy about that.

ROGLIC: Like I said, I don’t really bother with others, we can only manage ourselves. In fact Bernal is dead to me. He doesn’t exist. He’s a nothing, a lack, a cipher, a ghost, a spectre. He’s a sausage. He’s a muffin.

INTERVIEWER: Did you really just say all that?

ROGLIC: No, that bastard blogger is putting words in my mouth again.

I didn’t get a snapshot of the interview but that’s a pretty boring shot anyway. Better to give you a few pictures that show how badly these guys have suffered today. Look at this crazy candid photo of Pogacar after his victory salute:

You can tell Dumoulin dug pretty deep…

It’s also pretty clear Sam Bennett had a hard day, facing the brutal climbs after picking up two more points over Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgroe) in the green jersey competition).

As for Sagan, he doesn’t actually look tired … just deranged.

Here is the top twelve on GC. Note how Alejandro Valverde, at forty years old, supposedly a domestique for Enric Mas, is managing to (selfishly) have a very good GC result so far. Better living through science!

Well, that’s it for today. What a glorious stage. Check back on Wednesday because I’m taking the whole day off work just to give you a blow-by-blow of Stage 17, which promises to be another epic day as it tackles the infamous hors categorie Col de la Madeleine and finishes atop the (also hors categorie) Col de la Loze. Be there!

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2020 Tour de France Stage 8

Introduction

When I file blow-by-blow reports of pro bike races, I take full advantage of my amateur, unfunded status: I don’t have to bite my tongue when it’s time to cry foul. The typical offense is obvious doping. Happily, things have settled down a bit, by which I mean Team Ineos has apparently screwed up its drug program. Maybe their supplier folded or something. Anyway, read on for my coverage of Stage 8 of the 2020 Tour de France, delayed-due-to-coronavirus edition.

Tour de France Stage 8 – Cazeres-sur-Garonne to Loudenvielle

As I begin, the peloton is heading toward the first and only intermediate sprint of the day, at the base of the first climb. I bother to cover this because—hang on, I’ll tell you in a second. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgroe) is starting to go for it but suddenly seems to just tire out or something. He sits down and Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) takes the sprint!

What’s weird is that due to a breakaway today, only the top two in the peloton could score points here, and Sagan didn’t even take second. It’s like he couldn’t be bothered to sprint, which is so weird because yesterday his team basically did a team time trial at the front all day to try to saw off a bunch of inattentive sprinters, which worked out great. At least a dozen sprinters got dropped, including  the (then) points leader Bennett, and that’s how Sagan got his green jersey back.

Oddly, Sagan got the requisite points only via the intermediate sprints that the other sprinters weren’t around for. While the key objective of the plan was obviously for Sagan to get a stage win (with fewer riders to outsprint), at the finish line he was nowhere to be seen. Turns out his chain fell off. Bizarre. Stranger still, Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) was perfectly placed in the final sprint but suddenly lost steam, waving his arm angrily, and didn’t place. Turns out he’d pulled his foot out of the pedal. It was the most exciting “boring sprinters’ stage” ever.

So, as the race approaches the first big climb, the category 1 Col de Menté, there’s a giant breakaway of 13 riders who have 14 minutes on the peloton. That’s why there were so few intermediate sprint places on offer for the main field. I’m not sure who any of these guys are, but there are a couple things worth pointing out. Look:

First, we see that the leader has clown hair. Doesn’t his head get awfully hot? Not to mention he looks pretty ridiculous? Well, he’s fast, anyway. The other thing we notice is that the guy behind him is Black. That is quite rare in the pro peloton. You know what’s even rarer? For the announcers to mention it. Maybe racial matters just make them nervous, like they’re afraid if they say anything it could the wrong thing. I hope it’s not that the announcers “don’t see race.” That’s nonsense. Nobody “doesn’t see race.” Some people decline to acknowledge it, is all. As if it didn’t affect anybody. But I digress.

So the Black guy is Kévin Reza (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept). Here’s a nice close-up:

I don’t know much about him other than what Wikipedia says. It’s his third Tour, he’s done the Vuelta twice, and he rode the Giro once. It says he’s a sprinter, but it appears he climbs well too. (You won’t see a pure sprinter like Alexander Kristoff in a breakaway on a mountain stage.)

As the break approaches the summit of the Col de Menté, the leader in the KOM competition, Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R-La Mondiale) attacks the group to get maximum points.

So, I don’t particularly care about this breakaway because it’s mainly nobodies from a GC perspective. The highest-placed rider in it is Ilnur Zakarin (CCC Team), who started the day in 89th place, almost 13 minutes down. The main effect this break will have is to make the peloton more sluggish. If the all-important stage time bonuses are snapped up by breakaway riders, the GC group has less incentive to mix it up and be aggressive. That means a strong team like Ineos or Jumbo-Visma will want to control things, to save their riders’ energy for the second two weeks of the Tour, so the main GC contenders might just roll over the line together, which would be boring. (Note: I refuse to say “keep their powder dry.” That cliché should be abolished.)

Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale) has some kind of problem and is off the back of the peloton. His teammates pace him back up. This group is nearing the summit of the Menté. They take on some food.

Okay, the peloton is over the top. Some douchebag spectator waves his arms wildly at the camera making peace sign, and he’s not wearing a mask. Oddly, masks are not required nationwide in France, so the race organizers can only request that fans wear them. As detailed here, a couple of the racers have expressed concern about this. After all, the fans are yelling their heads off, which greatly increases the chance of virus transmission. Imagine if just one racer caught Covid-19 from a spectator … these guys are riding inches from one another, and (obviously) breathing hard. Could end the Tour.

Speaking of which, there’s an interesting rule about the race this year: if the race has to be stopped due to Covid-19, whoever has the yellow jersey at that point will be declared the winner, so long as at least ten stages have been completed. This may make for more aggressive riding, because waiting until the third week to take the lead isn’t as bulletproof a strategy as in years past.

There are still 65 km to go. Man, I got up super early so I could see the riders tackle the Col de Menté and I’m not sure it was worth it.

Looks like Bardet’s issue was a crash. I hope he’s not badly hurt … I think he’s underrated and could be one of France’s best hopes for a great Tour.

The clown-haired guy, Jerome Cousin, has dropped the breakaway on the early slopes of the main climb of the day, the hors categorie Port de Balès, almost 12 km long averaging 7.7%. This guy has been on the front more than anybody else today. As for his hair, the announcer helpfully points out that the hair salons in France are all closed. Why doesn’t Cousin’s wife/other cut his hair? Who knows. Maybe she has a fetish for clown hair.

Wow, Cousin is really hauling ass! He’s got almost a minute on the rest of the breakaway. I wish I’d seen his attack, but I was, uh, detained. I’ve drunk a lot of coffee this morning and was making my own, uh, move.

Still, there are over 35 miles left to race, so this is still a fairly Quixotic move. Maybe Cousin felt like his breakaway companions were loafing, and is goading the strongest ones to bridge up.

My poor cat has been banished to the garage because she bothers my daughter’s sleep. But she’s crying piteously at the door and has been for like an hour. I’ve got to let her out. So things are about to get pretty dicey chez Albert.

So, here’s a quick recap of this Tour so far. On the GC front, Alaphilippe took the yellow jersey with an awesome move in an early stage, only to lose it the next day by getting an illegal feed, less than 20km from the finish. I can’t understand how a) he didn’t seem to know the rule, and b) his team mechanic, who passed up the bottle, also didn’t seem to know the rule. Since then, Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) has led the race, having been in the breakaway the day Alaphilippe won. Team Jumbo-Visma has ridden really well, setting up their leader, Primoz Roglic, for a brilliant stage win in the first mountain stage.

Team Ineos hasn’t been nearly as dominant as in years past, and in fact their leader, Egan Bernal, hasn’t looked that good. He’s recovering from back trouble that saw him drop out of the Criterium du Dauphiné a couple weeks ago. Richard Carapaz, the Plan B rider for Team Ineos, missed the split yesterday and lost 1:21. Oddly, Ineos didn’t put Chris Froome or Geraint Thomas on this year’s Tour team, despite them both being past Tour winners. I guess team management wasn’t happy with their form. Or maybe they were just being dicks, because they are. But I certainly won’t miss Froome, that doping d’bag.

There’s an American in the breakaway, Neilson Powless (EF-Education First), who had a great ride the other day, taking fourth in a mountain stage. The announcers are interviewing EF Team Manager Jonathan Vaughters, who boldly predicts that Powless will win today. I’m not overly superstitious, but I can’t help but to think Vaughters is dooming his rider. What are the odds that somebody makes such a pronouncement and then it comes to pass, especially when the rider is still fairly inexperienced?

Reza is dropped. He’d been doing a lot of work … perhaps it was all for his teammate, Quintin Pacher. Pacher is now in a more select group of three, with Zakarin and Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale). They’re now joined by Toms Skujins (Trek-Segrafredo).

Back in the peloton, Jumbo-Visma is still controlling the pace. They’ve got some help from Bora-Hansgroe, working for their GC leader, Emanuel Buchmann.

Wow! In the blink of an eye, Cousin detonates and gets passed by Zakarin, Peters, and Pacher, who have dropped Skujins and the rest of the breakaway.

Now Zakarin and Peters have dropped the others.

Whoah, this is weird. France’s best hope for a GC win, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), is having serious problems, going out the back of the peloton, and his team is rallying around him!

Oh, no. His teammates are patting him on the back as if to comfort him. That can’t be a good sign. And now he is struggling even keep up with them. He’s clearly dying. This is hard to watch.

Ah, they’re showing a replay of him trying to deal with some back pain.

Jumbo-Visma is really controlling the GC group’s pace, and they seem to have most of their guys.

One of their super-domestiques, Robert Gesink, drills it at the front, flanked by Wout van Aert, who has won two (flat) stages in this Tour.

Up the road, Zakarin and Peters are still in the lead, with 36 seconds back to the chasers as they crest the Port de Balès. They’ve got a pretty long descent coming up though … that won’t be easy for them against a slightly larger group behind them.

Powless has been yo-yoing off the back of this chase group and makes contact just as they reach the summit.

Peters totally drops Zakarin on the descent. Zakarin looks really tentative. Look how he hangs his knee out … that’s bad enough in a curve, but he’s doing it well in advance of the next one.

Wow, Pinot is just done. You can tell. His group has lost almost five minutes already. Best case scenario now is that he stays in the race, starts to feel better in the next week or so, and can go for a stage win or two.

The American star Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) has been dropped. Van Aert takes up the pacemaking. Maybe Kuss is fried from all the work he did for his team yesterday, on flat roads in the wind … not exactly his forte.

The GC group is starting to pull back the breakaway, now about ten minutes back. They’re probably not too bummed about missing the chance for a stage win and/or time bonuses but they don’t want to leave it for too long.

Peters is tackling the final climb solo, having totally dusted Zakarin on the descent.

Zakarin doesn’t look so good on the climb, either, and continues to lose time to Peters. He’s now 33 seconds behind.

Maybe I spoke too soon. Peters is suffering pretty badly himself and the gap starts to come down. Needless to say, if Zakarin wants the stage win he’ll have to completely drop Peters on this climb, because Zakarin can’t descend for shit.

And now van Aert totally detonates! He’s spat out the back with a quickness. No shame there, though … he’s done a kickass job today. And all week.

Zakarin now has Peters in sight. But the gap isn’t coming down very quickly and we’ll have to see how Peters holds up.

Look at these fans. Clearly they need a tutorial on proper mask fitting. Maybe they pulled the masks down to better cheer the riders on, screaming their heads off four feet from the athletes’ faces? Fricking clowns.

Back in the GC group, Alaphilippe attacks!

This stretches things out a bit and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team), the oldest rider in the race, is dropped.

Wow, Alaphilippe suddenly completely detonates and he’s OTB!

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)attacks!

Pogacar is a major GC threat, despite missing a split yesterday and losing 1:21. None of the GC favorites will want to see him go. Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) bridges right up! 

And Yates and Dumoulin are both dropped! Only Roglic can stay with Quintana and Pogacar! And Pogacar goes again!

Yates catches back on, and Dumoulin tries to claw his way back as well.

The GC group is on the verge of completely detonating. Look at all these little gaps. Bernal, in the white Young Rider jersey, hasn’t done much today except to hang on.

Pogacar has a pretty good gap! 

Up at the front, Peters is now growing his gap over Zakarin and near the summit has an awesome chance at taking the stage.

Carapaz is doing a great job for Bernal. It’s a pity Carapaz lost that time yesterday. I’d love to see a rivalry form, not because I enjoy insubordination per se, but because I (obviously) hate Ineos. Speaking of whom, they’re calling themselves the “Ineos Grenadiers” for this Tour, which is ridiculous. This team hasn’t lobbed a grenade all season, nor in last year’s Tour. Their typical tactic is gradual strangulation.

Pogacar has a pretty nice gap. He’s being chased by Richie Porte [Trek-Segafredo] and Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) who also lost time yesterday … all three need to make it up wherever they can.

Cripes, the crowds are as thick as ever, despite the race not allowing any motor vehicles up here. These guys all hiked for hours to get here.

Yates is dropped again! He only has three seconds on Roglic in the GC, so he could easily lose the jersey today. Enric Mas (Movistar Team) falls off as well. Mas is Movistar’s highest-placed rider, starting the day in 13th, only 22 seconds back.

And now Quintana attacks! Only Roglic can match him!

Roglic puts the hammer down on the descent! Surely he wants to take advantage of Yates being on the back foot.

Peters pretty much has this. Over the final climb and heading toward the finish, he leads Zakarin by almost a minute.

A mile later, Peters has got the win!

A bit later, Skujins outsprints Carlos Verona (Movistar Team) for second place. Evidently the two passed Zakarin, who must have completely blown up.

Ah, here’s Zakarin. I’ll bet he’s really regretting what a grandma he is on the descents. He surely wasted a ton of energy making up for it, and eventually blew.

Powless gets fifth on the day. Not bad for a rider who was jinxed by a general manager who needs to learn how to talk less.

Pogacar continues to drive, and now has 39 seconds on the GC group.

Back in the peloton, Yates has caught back up and the group is more together … and Bardet attacks!

Bardet is getting a pretty good gap!

Up the road, Pogacar finishes strong, taking back 39 or 40 seconds on the rest of the GC guys.

Alas, by the time they roll in, Bardet is all but caught. Look at Yates, leading the chase like a boss. Pretty impressive after he’d been dropped twice earlier. Note also Bernal just tucked in there, like always. I’m not that fond of Bernal. He never does anything aggressive or interesting … he’s just waiting for people to get tired. I don’t think he’s had his face in the wind a single-dingle time in this Tour.

Here’s the top ten for the stage.

They’re interviewing Peters. “Tell us about your win,” the interviewer begins. “Well, it’s my first Tour de France, and I’d had this dream of doing something special,” Peters replies. “It was kind of a weird dream. I was on my way to a job interview, wearing a nice suit and everything, and I was in an elevator, and I looked down and realized I was barefoot. Oh, wait. Wrong dream. Anyway.” To which the interviewer responds, “Okay, so you’re a dreamer. Is that why you forgot to put on a Covid mask for this interview?” Peters: “Oh, shit!”

And now Alaphilippe finally finishes, having lost about 13 minutes to the GC group.

Peters mounts the podium. He’s managed to find a mask and looks a bit chastened.

Now, finally, Pinot miserably rolls over the line with his team, almost 20 minutes behind the GC group. I hope he can recover in time to salvage some glory in the remaining two weeks of this Tour.

Peters also gets the combativity (most aggressive rider) award today. Note that podium girls are no longer a thing. Instead there’s always one man and one woman. The man often looks like a complete imbecile because there are things you can do with a dress that you cannot reasonably do with a suit, like being bright red. I’ll bet when this guy gets to Paris, and the whole race is over and he’s back at his hotel room, he’ll just take this suit off and stuff it in the trash.

Yates is being interviewed. “You got dropped there, what happened?” the interviewer asks. “Well,” Yates replies, “Dumoulin did a monster pull and I couldn’t hang, so I had to drop back and do my own pace for a while. I could have become demoralized but then I said to myself, hey man, it’s time to put the pussy on the chain wax!”

(Note: unless a rider actually says something interesting in an interview, I supply my own narrative. Clearly I’ve taken some liberties today. But Yates really did acknowledge Dumoulin’s hard work at the front.)

Dumoulin’s other teammates eventually faltered today, particularly Kuss, so Dumoulin had to take up the domestique work himself on the last climb, showing great loyalty to Roglic. This is notable because at various times Dumoulin, and others, have implied that he’s a co-leader of Jumbo-Visma. Today settled that … Dumoulin ended up sacrificing himself and losing a lot of time on GC such that he’s likely no longer a contender for the podium.

Here’s the new top-ten on GC. Bardet moved up a few spots (gleaning two seconds today), and Pogacar climbed a bit.

Main takeaways from today? Ineos remains fairly unimpressive; Jumbo-Visma is still pretty solid; Yates did an awesome job keeping his cool and defending his jersey; Quintana looks solid; Pinot is out; Alaphilippe will officially be looking only for stage wins; and a lot of these spectators are making me really nervous.

Tune in again a week from tomorrow when I return to cover Stage 15, which finishes atop the hors categorie Grand Colombier!

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