Le Tour Day Six - Six Peaks and A Storied Finish Line

I hope some of you had a chance to see the last portion of yesterday's stage - such excitement. Congratulations to Peter Sagan for pulling out the Stage win in an exciting race to the finish line. Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) remains in Yellow, and Sagan is continuing to solidify his grip on the Green. The real surprise this far in the race is a new rider, Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma). This young rider has been second in the overall standings since Day 2 of the race and was right on Sagan's heels on this stage. If he can keep up his energy and stay away from accidents or disasters, he might well be a serious contender for the GC win. I'm impressed by this young Belgian rider. 

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So - Day 6 and we're going from Mulhouse to La Planche des Belles Filles. Just look at that profile. It's 160.5 km of up and down - the first "mountain" stage of this year's Tour. It's time for the sprinters to grit their teeth and pull through, and the mountain men to dance on their pedals. The official blurb is as follows: 

This is the fourth finish atop La Planche des Belles Filles in eight years. It was the venue of Chris Froome’s first ever Tour de France stage win in 2012. Vincenzo Nibali was first in the ski resort of the Haute-Saône in the massif of the Vosges in 2014 and Fabio Aru won up there in 2017. It was already a very steep finale but it’ll be even steeper, longer and harder this time with one more kilometre to climb. It makes it a 7-km long hill at 8.7% and final ramps at 20%. This is Thibaut Pinot’s territory. The Groupama-FDJ leader will race on home soil. He knows how difficult the previous climbs are too: Markstein and Ballon d’Alsace are first category hills and the col des Chevrères just before La Planche is a very hard one too. Julian Alaphilippe is aware of the huge tasks he’ll face in the defence of the yellow jersey against the GC contenders but also the attackers from far out who haven’t had the scenario they wanted on stage 5.

When we take a look at the full TdF route once more (it's been a few days since we've taken a peek at the overall map), we see that we're actually on the far eastern side of France, not even down as far South as the Alps ... yet. They're coming, but they'll be at the end of the Tour, not the beginning. After today's stage, we'll start moving west and south, across the Grand Massif and towards the Pyrenees. Mayhem will still ensue. 

Here's a bit closer look at the overall course for
this year. We're still in the upper right, moving closer
to the center in tomorrow's stage. 

Here, I'll give you a closeup of where we've been so far. Look for Colmar with a red tag against the right side. That's where yesterday's route ended. Today we start at the blue diamond slightly below that, and jig/jag over and around to Le Planche des Belles Filles. Cracks in the peleton that have already started should grow larger with today's very hilly route. There's not "quite" mountains, but there're going to feel like that anyway. 

Here's a close-up of where we've been so far. It
includes tomorrow's stage as well. It's not a lot of
area compared to the full map, but it's already
testing the riders. We'll start to see people lose
energy and fall off the back today. 

Today should be STELLAR and I'm hoping I'll have a chance to actually see the race ending instead of working with a customer, but you never can tell. That's the problem when working retail, but it's also the good, since those customers pay our salaries and allow us to be in business. 

So, I'm off to the gym. Yesterday's consult with the doctor basically reaffirmed what my PT said - I need to increase my impact exercise. So, instead of fighting my way through the elliptical, etc., I'm going to be running/walking on the indoor track. I also have a new exercise for therapy to add to the repertoire, an exercise that necessitated the purchase of an inexpensive yoga mat (to help keep my face from direct contact with the Y's floor mats). At least I found a yoga mat for $16. I'm really NOT a yoga person. Have a wonderful Thursday, enjoy Le Tour, and I'll be back tomorrow!