HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 12: Tonnerre > Vittel, 211.5km
Le Tour de France! Ca va? What does the ‘0’ stand for in 02:30 ? “Oh my God, it’s early!” Four hours sleep, as Barry White would say; “it’s just not enough!” It’s 14:19 and we’re on the motorway, near Metz; we just got lost – no excuses, but the signage is grim. Destination Vittel.
A town will be clearly marked, then it disappears at the next roundabout and being on the correct route has a large element of luck to it.
It’s not until you fly over Northern France again, that you remember how much a part agriculture plays in the structure of the French economy.
Nicki Sorensen.
Fly over Scotland and it’s not long before the patchwork of fields gives way to the hills – moorland or forest, but in France, the barely crumpled green, brown and golden quilt covers the land to the horizon and beyond in every direction.
Paris has hi-tech La Defense and Toulouse spawned Concorde, but make no mistake, much of France is still “profond.” Rural, deep, real.
But, enough of my blethers – “what about the race ?”
“Cavendish quatre a quatre” says the heading above the postage size picture of Cav, tucked into the gutter of L’Equipe’s front page.
On the cover of Monday’s edition, the whole front page was devoted to a colour picture of Fédrigo getting the better of Pellizotti at Tarbes.
The French are obviously getting bored with the ease with which Cav is hoovering up stages.
There was a piece in the Guardian, this morning that the French are also peeved about the young Manxman’s getting a bit “eggy” (as Terry Wogan would say) and making use of the “F” word, to quote L’Equipe’s headline, our Mark is alleged to have been ‘going off’ thus; “Asshole” and “F***ing Frenchies” – ah yes, I can see Viktor raising Cav even higher on the pedestal, now.
Ironically, right beside those eight column inches, he gets 10/10 to Tyler Farrar’s 8, Hushovd’s 4 and Freire’s 3.
They also analyse Cav’s train, “Le TGV de Columbia”… Grabsch and Eisel control the breaks and start the chase, at 50 kph.
Monfort, Kirchen and Rogers prevent breakaways and launch the final part of the train – 60 kph.
Hincapie, Martin and Renshaw bring Cav in, alone, as fast as possible and as close to the line as possible – 70 kph.
Doesn’t sound that difficult!
And across the top of the page above, a picture of him getting the better of Tyler Farrar, it proclaims; “Un sprint parfait” so, I guess they can’t be that pee-ed off with him.
It’s 17:30 CET now, in the press room, Vittel – we were met with the usual indifference when we went to get the creds – fat, bald and old doesn’t cut it with the ASO lovelies. [I hope Ed’s not describing me! Martin].
But eventually the White Knight arrived; a helpful lad who spoke English – job done!
Sorensen just won, he jumped the break then jumped his co-escapee, Calzati to win in the grand manner.
Cav skooshed the bunch sprint to stay in green.
That’s it, then, game on – best do some work!
Ciao!
Tour 09 Stage 12 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 12 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
AS starts today’s news with the fact that Cavendish wins stages with or with out race radios. “Dictadura del sprint” and “Con pinganillos o sin ellos, se repite el final gana Cavendish”, remember pinganillos are race radios in Spanish. So “Cav” is the dictator of the sprint, which if you think of it, that’s quite strong in a country that lived under a dictator (Franco) as recently as 1974!
Cav is the talk of the race.
Cavendish is the star of all the Spanish sports papers, “Cavendish equals the record of victories in 11 stages”. The man from the Isle of Man is being mentioned in the same breath as Petacchi, Cipollini and Freddy Maertens in that they have all won 4 stages in the first eleven stages.
The other big news is that Leipheimer and another 106 riders, including Wiggins and Menchov, are to be given back the 15 seconds they lost on Tuesday. Possible good news could be that Bouygues may stay on as a sponsor for another year costing 5.5 million euros; the win by Voeckler seems to have helped.
Andy Schleck has said “Seria estapido no atacar al Astaná en los Alpes…” so it would be stupid not to attack Astana in the Alps, fairly obvious.
We can’t wait, Andy.
Contador and Armstrong are his main competition and Alberto has the form, but Lance has to be given a lot of respect. And Friday to Colmar? “I would be stupid not to attack; I have a plan, maybe an early attack!”
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.
Jack Bauer; tall, dark, slim, handsome, polite, grounded, friendly - it would have been so nice to add 'Tour de France stage winner' to that description. Dave and I were holed up in a nice old bar/restaurant attached to a genteel hotel in Carcassonne watching the finale of Stage 15 and willing the big man from the land of the long white cloud to cross that line first.
Wednesday morning, 09:55 the 'Milano by-pass' average speed around 10 mph. You only think you've seen traffic jams 'til you come to Northern Italy. And it's not helped by the fact that everyone thinks that it's their private fiefdom; the standard of driving is dire. We arrived late on the Monday rest day and after much messing around at the airport deciphered that our hire car was through an agency, so we had to tour the car hire offices 'til we got the right one.
Sunday afternoon at the Bremen Six Day, but no Sunday Post or relaxed breakfast on this watch. The Dernys drone, the speaker bellows himself hoarse, there's a wiff of vomit in the air - one of those wasted guys I saw last night must have been creative with where they threw up so the cleaners couldn't get to it.
It's now 19.45 on Saturday evening, and we're sat in the car en route La Maddalena listening to The Pioneers, 'Let your yeah be yeah' - crucial, John. The ferry port at Maddalena is grid-locked, but we've got our reggae and a cold Dreher beer, so waiting for the ferry isn't so bad. We shared the ferry out with CSC and Saunier, but they are long-gone on the first ferry out. It's been a cracking day, weather and gig-wise.
Here at VeloVeritas we pride ourselves on always getting ‘a word’ with the new British 25 Mile Time Trial Champion; the late, great Jason Macintyre, Michael Hutchinson, Joe Perret, Matt Bottril, Ryan Perry, Dan Bigham have all taken time to speak to us. In joint silver medal slot at the recent British 25 Mile Time Trial Championships was Chris Bartley (AS Test Team), former World Rowing Champion and Olympic silver medallist.
Sometimes it’s strange how you pick up on a story; take this one. My friend, former colleague and owner of a rather nice Look, Kenny Burrell sent me a text about a gentleman he’d been chatting to – a certain Mr E.V. (Ernie) Mitchell by name. "The first man to break two hours for a 50 mile TT in Scotland, back in the 1950’s" said Ken. "I’ll check that out, Ken" I texted back. And that was the first step on my journey to E.V.’s (although he prefers Ernie, these days) front door.
We left Colin Sturgess in Part One telling us about his time as a teenager racing in the Commonwealth Games and in the Olympics, and turning pro for the Belgian team ADR.
‘The Tour is the Tour,’ for sure, But for me the Giro is the most beautiful; oh to be in the Bella Italia, great weather, a crisp pink Gazzetta dello Sport and perfect cappuccino every morning. Plus, we discover mullet bikes, Drone Hopper socks, and wonder if Wee Tom is doing too much?
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