Thursday, July 19, 2018

Le Tour Day 12 - The Final Day in the Alps

Alpe d'Huez resonates in the mountain biking world. The multiple switchbacks, the steep terrain, and the storied history within bicycle racing have made it an icon. It's been raced from bottom to top. It's been raced from top to bottom. It's even been raced from both directions in the same race. It never fails to amaze and delight the fans, and crush the riders. Today's stage in the Alps ends on Alpe d'Huez. I'll be standing on the side of one of the switchbacks ringing a virtual cowbell alongside Chickie in my imagination. Doing that in real life? It's on our bucket lists. 



The top of Alpe d'Huez is a ski resort, but I wouldn't want
to be driving up these switchbacks in the snow and ice. The
famous switchback road that gets you from bottom to
top is almost never-ending. 



Yesterday's fight through the Alps was magnificent. Geraint Thomas (Sky) pushed hard and took off like a gazelle about 5k from the summit finish line. Five klicks from the end is a long way to hold a lead, but even as he was almost caught by his fellow teammate, Chris Froome, he pulled on his reserves again and sprinted ahead for the final kilometer to win the stage and the Yellow Jersey. So, Team Sky now has the yellow. Froome actually was neck-to-neck with Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) but ended up in third place by the thickness of a bicycle wheel. 



Today is brutal - three HC classed peaks with a single baby
Cat 2 nestled among them. The already broken field
will be blown apart by today's final day in the Alps,
and riders who gave their all yesterday may find that
today is an impossible dream.

Also, although Alpe d'Huez
takes a lot of press, don't forget about Col de la
Madeleine, a mountain almost as storied in Tour
de France history. Madeleine is a monster! 



Some well-known riders were broken by the Alps yesterday and finished outside of the time limit. Say good-bye to Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), his lead-in man Mark Renshaw (Dimension Data), and Marcel Kittle (Katusha Alpecin). Amazingly, Lawson Craddock (Education First) is still riding, and actually doing better than many riders less severely injured than he is. So far his courage and tenacity has inspired so many people that he has managed to raise more than $100,000 for hurricane relief and rebuilding in his home city of Houston, Texas. Currently he stands at 123, ahead of almost 40 riders including his own teammate, Taylor Phinney. 



Alpe d'Huez looks so kind in this detail, but
among all of those black sections of extreme
gradient, is the actual roadway - switchback
after switchback, after switchback. 



So today we're back in the high mountains, those natural boundaries that effectively cut one country off from another. The race must go on, therefore these mountains must be conquered before we can move across France toward the mountainous western fence, the Pyrenees. There's lots of up and down in the 175.5 km race today, and it takes two hours alone just for Col de la Madeleine. Hard work for everyone today, and there will be more riders dropped by either time or accident by the end of today's stage. 

Have a fabulous Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow. I'm SO excited - today ends on Alpe d'Huez and I'll be watching, even if it is watching on a screen. 


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