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Will Frischkorn's Tour de France diary, stage 2
This part of France, Brittany, is a cycling-mad area. I could write again about the crowds, as they were just as impressive as yesterday, if not more so, and still blowing my mind.
It’s also a pretty stunning area when it’s sunny. Unfortunately, it isn’t sunny very often, and when it is it doesn’t last long. A very permanent weather condition here however is the wind. It’s windy. Very. Always. And it’s a wind that comes straight off the Atlantic with a few thousand Ks of built-up momentum. It’s also a wind that often brings along rain, and while normally a cyclist wouldn’t say anything even slightly favorable about precipitation, we’re pretty lucky that it rains as much as it does up here.
We’ve been getting pretty lucky the past few days, suffering only moments of spitting rain, but the bonus of all that moisture is that there are trees everywhere, and without those trees today would have been carnage. Pretty much a screaming crosswind for the first 120k. We were mostly spared the effects of what could have been an epic by the fact that we were almost constantly surrounded by those lovely deciduous beasts. The tops of 'em were bent sideways, but down where we were riding the wind was only in the “annoying” category.
Then with 40km to go we turned right and that that sidewind turned tail. The roads opened up a bit as well and with a screaming wind on our backs peloton was HAULING. Crazy fast; 60k an hour during the slow bits, 75 for the fast — and that was on the flat bits of road. Dips down — yeah … Bumps up, well, still 50+. The closing Ks had the feel of a video game with riders moving every which way, somehow all staying upright, colors mixing in your vision, and everything else around us blurring into a tunnel.
The final run-in turned back into the wind and uphill for a couple of clicks and everybody had a moment to regroup before the sprint. A nasty crash with 1.5km to go took out Julian, who’d been looking good and in great position, and put a couple of splits in the field, but he fortunately made it across the line without serious issues. Our GC guys were right where they needed to be, and the rest of us could once again take it a bit easier right at the end as the splits in the field started to appear.
Our biggest victory today, however, was something nobody but those of us on the bus would appreciate. We were the first bus out of team parking. First! Smoked em! We’re notoriously slow; always one of the stragglers out of the finish. Everybody takes a shower, we all get some food, the driver chats with friends, and all of a sudden 45 minutes disappear. Today — we killed it! We hit the bus, grabbed recovery drinks and bowls of rice and eggs from Allen Lim, post-race chef and caretaker extraordinaire, and were off. With only 5km to the hotel we were watching the race wrap-up on France 3 TV back in the rooms while the Liquigas boys were most likely still blow-drying their hair and spritzing some scent for the ride home. Simple pleasures. ...
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