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Will Frischkorn's Tour de France diary, stage 8
Today was a stressful day out on the roads of France for one and all. We woke up to beautiful sunny skies and what looked like it would be a warm day. An hour later the rain socked in and didn’t let up all day long. When the entire field is jockeying for position on the start line, that’s still followed by 10 minutes of neutral before the official gun goes off, you know it’s going to be a rough one.
Sitting on the line Christian made the comment “What other sport do you line up with absolutely no warm-up, in the cold rain, and get yourself ready to go flat out from the gun? Stupid. And then we cross the line and step off our bikes still at 160 heart rate, jumping straight onto the bus. Yep, we’re idiots.”
All that said, racing was on from K-0 and the first 30k were flat-schstick. When there was finally a manageable breakaway formed ahead of the bunch and the opportunity to let up, the bunch was all yells, arms crossed in the “time out” sign, and eventually the aggression was stopped for good when Kirchen simply pulled over to take a leak. Can’t attack the race leader while he’s on a “nature break,” right?
We then settled in for what was still a tough up-and-down stage on smaller roads, rain pelting us constantly, until 60k to go. With the break at 5 minutes, easily catch-able, the sprinters' teams decided to hit the gas hard and all of a sudden the field was flying across the plains north of Toulouse and the stress meter was banging the needle on the stop pin. There’s nothing like a fighting bunch, gutter to gutter, in the rain, dodging roundabouts, traffic islands, and small town turns, all on snot-slick roads to get things going.
And that was pretty much the story until the finish. Constant battling to be at the front, trying not to crash or get crashed, and keeping out leaders protected. I’ve been charged with staying glued to Christian for all of these transition stages. Anything he needs ... near the finish our Felts are close enough that we could do a quick bike change if he has a mechanical. Fortunately he was lucky today with no issues out there, but with rain all day the pssssst of tires going down was a frequent addition to the soundtrack of the stage. David had a flat with 7k to go and put in an amazing dig, aided by some of the other guys, to get back in to the field by the finish. Not a chance I could have even come close; it’s impressive to watch the leaders show their class in times like those.
Tomorrow is the first day in the real mountains, and with 224k and two major passes near the finish it’s going to be brutal. And just a warm up for the two that follow. By the time we head across towards the roads of Provence the battle at the top will have truly started taking shape. For the rest of us … time to grit the teeth and suffer.
