Inspiration, Anticipation and Domestiques
Posted July 22, 2011
Now, I’m not going to lie, I’ve been glued to almost every available moment of the Tour de France since stage 1. Even being on holiday in Greece didn’t stop my avid addiction to the frenetic sporting circus which is the Tour. The impressive riding by Thomas Voeckler, Andy Schleck and the stoic determination and loyalty of their domestiques throughout the Tour is well and truly a sight to behold. As someone who is yet to find exactly where my true cycling talents (providing they exist!) lie, the sight of the favourites slogging up the taxing climbs of the Alps has been a real inspiration and eye opener.
Similar to Andy Ward, who took a holiday in the beautiful Provence region of France last month, I am also heading to France! The family holiday is booked and Lake Annecy is the destination! Just like Andy, we don’t do passive holidays! On the agenda are two 12 and a half hour cycling weeks as prescribed by my coach, as well as the promise of white water rafting, paragliding and maybe the odd moment of relaxation in one of the area’s fantastic restaurants. I’ve already dug out the map of France and the 2009 final time trial map which laps Lake Annecy; let’s see what the pros really go through!
But I digress; the Tour has always had its heroes, those riders who display incredible tenacity, bravery and grit to get through the Tour’s epic parcours. As we’ve already covered, Johnny Hoogerland and Juan Antonio Flecha are such riders. Laurens Ten Dam also suffered an awful crash mid way through the Tour, performing an incredibly acrobatic head over heals crash manoeuvre; despite this he still soldiered on, his face entirely bandaged for at least one stage and now seems set to reach Paris.
This kind of bravery is something which is redefining the idea of hard men in sport. I’d be hard pushed to name a single other sporting person who would get up after being thrown into a barbed wire fence at 25 miles an hour and then ride not only another 60km that day, but then almost another 1500km over subsequent days and weeks. Voeckler too has displayed his true courage, in his post-race interview on stage 18, he was almost unable to speak and even got a ride down from the Galibier on one of L’Equipe’s motorbikes. Voeckler’s English is normally quite good, but even basic sentences were proving tricky for him, showing just how much he had to give on the final climb.
Stage 19 is about to kick off, it’s going to be an interesting one, 109km with a 1st category climb and two Hors Category climbs. A painful day in the saddle awaits the peleton. Over half the peleton missed the time cut on stage 18, coming in over 34 minutes behind the winner, just a little glimpse into the differing preferences of riders in the pro peleton, but this group still averaged nearly 30kmph, an insane speed over 200km with so much climbing – we struggle to average this over 3 hours on flat terrain!
So chapeau, to all the Tour riders, from the Lanterne Rouge to the yellow jersey – bravery in sport has long been redefined by the Tour and long may this continue!
Happy Cycling :-)
picture featured in the Daily Cycle Flickr Group – added by sharonnord
