Le Tour de France 2013 – Stage 11: Avranches > Mont-Saint-Michel, 33km ITT. Tony Martin Takes It

Tony Martin was impressive, so was Chris Froome – Cadel Evans, Pierre Rolland, Nairo Quintana, Tejay van Garderen and a whole host of others, weren’t. Bonjour, from the Balladins Motel, ville de Tours, from Martin and Ed!

Yes, VeloVeritas has joined le Tour – well, almost, we spent the day in Tours, tomorrow’s stage finish town – doing a wee travelogue piece for ‘a well known North American Website’ and skeking the Mont-Saint-Michel TT on TV.

But before we talk too much about today’s stage – Ivan was in touch about what the word is in Belgium on yesterday’s ‘CavGate.’

Eddy Planckaert thinks Cavendish should have been de-classed; “a dirty thing to do to Veelers, Cav had already lost.”

And Steegmans said he could have taken Cav to 200 metres; he didn’t know why Cav hesitated – we thought the same thing.

Planckaert continued that he thinks Cav shouldn’t have ridden the Giro, it’s too much, too difficult a parcours, he’s not a Grand Tour rider, he’s a sprinter, sure he has to ride GTs to win sprints, but it takes far too much out of a sprinter, Kittel, Greipel etc. don’t have the Giro in their legs.

Planckaert also says Cav needs a team to take him to 200 metres, maybe Renshaw going to OPQS will help his train – so there would be Trentin, Steegmans and Renshaw all launching Cav.

But it’s history now; and the Stage One ‘BusGate’ is pre-history – that’s the Tour for you.

It’s like taking a kid to the shows; they come off one ride and immediately want on the next one.

Today’s biggest story – Martin shows why he’s world champion, Froome confirms that he’s at a different level from the other GC guys and someone taking the p**h in to Cav – personally I’d have kept schtum on the last one.

It’s sad to say that whilst most of the roadside fans on le Tour are great folks, there’s a minority of morons who’ll think that what happened to Cav is a great idea to emulate.

In the car you have to keep the windows closed in the mountains for fear of idiots throwing water in on you as you chug up through the crowds.

It’s really funny – I mean the driver could be distracted and run someone’s toes over or a grand or two’s worth of camera could be wrecked.

The trouble is that idiots aren’t there just for the race; it’s to get wasted and behave like imbeciles.

After the Cav story its guaranteed there’ll be more of the same and the Opel’s windows will definitely be kept closed on the climbs.

We spent the day in Tours; which is a really nice town, especially the ‘vieux’ part with its half timbered houses, pavement cafes, sculptures and mixed crowd of people enjoying the sun and air.

Working for Pez is more than just about the bike racing; many of the North American readers like to see what Europe is all about.

We snapped the cathedral, medieval part of the town, the flower market, trams and tried to catch the essence of Tours for the readers.

Then it was time to settle down and watch the stage in the Bar Balkanic – the perfect venue, quiet with a big flat screen, cool beer and a simpatico proprietor.

Cadel Evans wasn’t on a good day; for me, the very fact that he rode a good Giro means he can’t do a ride in le Tour – in the current era it’s not possible to be competitive in both races.

The parcours was stunning; the huge Mont-San-Michel dominates the area and provided a wonderful backdrop for the race – ASO got that one right.

Pierre Rolland was another man who wasn’t having a good day; despite riding the 21 miles at 30 mph he was six kph slower over the distance than Tony Martin – hard to take in.

Laurens Ten Dam isn’t a pretty sight in a TT, the saliva and mucus cling to his beard and if you cropped a picture down to his face, it’d be easy to mistake the Dutchman for a runner in the 4:20 from Kempton Park.

Contador’s time trialling just isn’t the same as it used to be – 25 seconds down at the first check and ending the day 15th with a two minute deficit on Froome isn’t what the Alberto of old would have served up.

I’ve long been a fan of the man and his humility – but it certainly makes me wonder how he’s gone from being one of the best testers in the world to a ‘top 20 finisher.’

Schleck’s renaissance stalled as he dropped four-and-a-half minutes – but then he was never a man for ‘alone and unpaced’ discipline.

Bad days too for Rodriguez and Quintana – both now more than five minutes back on GC.

Valverde rode a decent race and now looks like a real podium contender – I had the 1-2-3 down as Froome – Contador – van Garderen.

That’s blown out of the water as the American endured another bad day – and whilst I think it’s wrong to put a line through Contador’s name for second spot, I think Valverde could well make the podium.

But the day was about two men – Tony Martin and Chris Froome.

The latter looks anything but the consummate chrono man but what he lacks in style he makes up for in sheer desire to win.

On what we saw yesterday I think he’s still going to win this Tour but I also think there’ll be torrid days ahead for the men in black – let’s hope so.

Once we get this piece organised it’s down for breakfast and then head for the Permanence and those vital credentials.

We’ll be covering the stage finish, today; I’ll tell you about it later…

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Results - Le Tour de France 2013 – Stage 11: Avranches > Mont-Saint-Michel