Tour de France Stage Zero: Rest Day One

What’s been happening so far in this… most eventful of Tours de France?

Stage 1

The first stage of the Tour de France is always packed with crashes. Add torrential rain and a Tour caravan that sprayed laundry detergent onto the streets an hour before the race passed through, and you’ve got something that looks more like an episode of Takeshi’s Castle than the world’s biggest sporting event.

Of course, risk management is part of cycling. Those who are more skillful or confident can take the risks that improve their performance. Wanting the race to stop because you’re not capable of riding at the same speed as other riders in certain conditions is a strange expectation, but the race did indeed get neutralized by the riders. Tony Martin had the honors of getting the most iconic photograph from the stage, with his arms aloft to halt the peloton.

Alexander Kristoff won the stage from a sprint finish with the other five people who didn’t come off their bikes during the stage. Phil Liggett said “wow, I didn’t mention him once,” and while that’s literally Phil Liggett’s job, he probably gets a free pass since nobody else predicted him for stage winner either.

Stage 2

Julian Alaphilippe returned to the top stage. As if he ever really left. He attacked with 13km remaining, with Marc Hirschi and Adam Yates coming along with him. Yates denied Alaphilippe the maximum time bonuses at the Col des Quatre Chemins, but the French rider had the last laugh. Yates led out Hirschi and Alaphilippe in the closing kilometer, and Alaphilippe won the sprint to take both the stage and the yellow jersey. It was a supremely confident, tactical victory.

Stage 3

The roads to Sisteron provided the first true sprint finish following the muted first stage. But a strong headwind made the sprint a comedy of errors as riders and their leadouts faded too early before the finish line. Caleb Ewan was the fastest, and smartest rider in the sprint, and took the win.

Stage 4

The Tour’s first summit finish. Orcierres-Merlette turned out to be a scorchingly fast ascent that made it difficult for anybody to attack the peloton. As predicted, the Jumbo-Visma team dominated events, Sepp Kuss delivering Roglic to a victory he made look easy.

It was a win to be proud of, but not one that will prove momentous in the overall story of this year’s Tour. Alaphilippe retained the yellow jersey, Bernal finished on the same time as his rivals, and there were no big surprises beyond the speed with which the peloton assaulted the climb.

Stage 5

Jumbo Visma aren’t even pretending any more, huh? Wout Van Aert decided to go for the sprint finish today, and beat out a Cees Bol who’d had a perfect lead out. Well then.

In a more shocking turn of events Alaphilippe lost the yellow jersey following a 20 second time penalty for taking a drink too close to the race finish. Adam Yates was more surprised than anyone to take over the race lead.

Stage 6

Not much to write home about here. Alexey Lutsenko won the stage on Mt Aigoual. Adam Yates retained his yellow jersey. Ineos attempted to do something, but didn’t do it very effectively.

At this point, the GC race is a slow simmer, despite the ASO’s best intentions.

Stage 7

We picked stage seven as one to watch this year, but we got the reasons wrong. It turned out to be an excellent stage for the armchair tacticians though.

Team Ineos spotted an opportunity to break the field in the final hour of racing, and set a blistering pace in the gutter of the road, where no echelons could form behind them. For a few moments it looked like they were about to blow the race apart, and then Jumbo Visma organized their reprisal just in time to save Primoz Roglic from getting caught by the split. For a while, we had Bernal and Roglic with competing trains on opposite sides of the road, and then an ebb and flow as the teams raced flat out to the finish with some wind assistance.

If there’s a way to determine whether Ineos or Jumbo Visma came out on top, then it has to be the winner: Wout van Aert again. He’d actually said he wasn’t interested in the stage win, but won it anyway. He’s just that good.

Stage 8

Pinot lost his Tour on Stage 8, earlier than predicted. He’s a pretty relatable plucky loser, all said. But it’d be great to see him cash in all the plucky loser goodwill he’s earned and do the kind of dominant ride that makes his rivals unpopular. If I were Thibaut Pinot, I would simply win the Tour by fifteen minutes.

Elsewhere, Pogacar showed some flair to regain 38 seconds from the minute and a hlaf or so he’d lost in the previous day’s crosswinds. Adam Yates barely just survived to keep the yellow jersey for another day, yo-yoing in and out of the group several times.

And Nans Peters won the stage.

Stage 9

The racing really warmed up right before the rest day. But it’s fresh in your mind, right? Pogacar wins. Roglic takes yellow.

The two Slovenians seem to be in a kind of muted truce with one another for now, despite almost crashing into each other on the Col de Marie Blanque. They could increasingly look like each other’s biggest rival for the yellow jersey as we get closer to Paris though, so that friendship could start to strain.

The race remains between Roglic and Bernal, but other players are waiting in the wings. At some point we’ll find out whether Bernal is biding his time or simply not quite at the level of his more explosive rivals.