Before the start of the Tour they give us a tome they call the Roadbook. This year’s is the 111th edition and like its predecessors it has profiles of each stage, maps of starts and finishes, biographies of the host cities, towns and villages. Graphs that show the length and severity of the climbs while making them look like cathedrals of pain. You feel the weight of this book on the first day and wonder: “How are they ever going to get through it?”
Eleven days have passed in the time it takes the peloton to whoosh past, and here we are at the halfway point. The first half of the Roadbook is now history, the second part is history yet to be written. Jasper Philipsen became the latest stage winner, the Belgian’s victory into Saint-Amand-Montrond coming in a bunch sprint after a race so dull it could have given an aspirin a headache. Or, to borrow from Spike Milligan: “We were watching these bike riders racing when suddenly, nothing happened.”
Sitting third in the Astana-Qazaqstan train as the peloton sped towards the finish, Mark Cavendish became detached from his team-mates two kilometres from the line and that was that.
“I don’t know why the boys went,” Cavendish said. “As I get there they went, we weren’t supposed to go until later,” he lamented. “We’ll have to speak about it and see what happens. It’s a bit unlike Morky [team-mate Michael Morkov] really. Things are never going to be exactly how you want them to be. Somebody’s got to win, a lot of people have to not win, that’s bike racing.”
That was the tenth leg. A rapid sprint quickly consigned to history. The 11th stage promises more. Six designated climbs through the Massif Central; heavy roads in dead heat, we’ve been here so many times and it’s always tough. Most of the climbing is squashed into a brutal final 56 kilometres. The ascents are not long, each is just four or five kilometres, but they are steep and coming at the end of a 211-kilometre stage, they will hurt.
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These climbs should suit Tadej Pogacar and in his post-race interview at Saint-Amand-Montrond he smiled when asked about the race to Le Lioran. He gently complained about the length of the stage, saying it complicated things. Two hundred and eleven kilometres are too many for him to ask his UAE team to control all the breakaways. “But the final is super-nice and really explosive,” he said and that seemed as close to a promise that he will attack as anyone could wish for.
Short climbs suit Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel more than Jonas Vingegaard. Theirs is an unholy trinity and Pogacar and Evenepoel won’t need much encouragement if they see any hint of weakness in their rival on these climbs. From the beginning Evenepoel has been deferential towards Pogacar, much less so towards Vingegaard. At the beginning, he spoke of Pogacar being “unreachable”.
His latest tribute is no less complimentary. “It’s going to be pretty tough to beat Tadej, but we
always have to push and believe in it,” he said. “A bad day can happen to anybody. We have to believe in our strength and in our own plans. Day by day, I’ll try to finish as close as I can to Tadej, that will take me quite far in this Tour,” he said. Does he know that Vingegaard is in the race?
Which means that Evenepoel, for all his charm and guilelessness, hasn’t been paying attention. Were he to take a look around him at this Tour, he would notice that Vingegaard is riding as though he and not Pogacar has the Yellow Jersey. Every time the peloton ups the pace, his Visma-Lease a Bike team-mates are driving at the front, little Vingegaard tucked neatly behind Wout van Aert or Christophe Laporte or Matteo Jorgenson. Always at the front, in position.
We still wonder whether the disrupted preparation will undo him. He quietly tells us how much he’s looking forward to the final week. Twelve months ago, when his preparation for the Tour had been exactly as he wanted it and the battle with Pogacar was mesmerising, he looked with sympathy on all of us who were hoping for the suspense to last. “It’s not going to be close in the last week,” he said.
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During the rest day in Orleans I asked Pogacar how Vingegaard and his lot knew he was going to crack in the final week.
“Last year they were really confident about the final week and now I think they are trying to play the same game, they try to have this confidence for the final week,” he said. “I must say it doesn’t bother me because I am way more confident in myself this year. I like the way the race has gone until now. I have the Yellow Jersey which is good for me and I just do my own race. Normally, if everything goes smooth, I should have good legs next week and also on the final three days.”
On Tuesday I asked if he believed that Vingegaard would be as strong in the final week as he was a year ago. “You could see from the climb of San Luca on the second day, when we both broke the record for that climb, that he was very strong,” he said. “He was good on the Col du Galibier also. I think he is going well, and he will take confidence from the first week.” Then Pogacar thought about what he was saying and how he should stop saying it. “I prefer to just speak about myself,” he said, by way of termination.
About his own form, he’s really happy. He feels good and believes that he will be strong all the way to the finish in Nice. This race through the Massif Central will tell us something. Who knows how much? Perhaps young Remco, who believes the Tour will not truly begin until the first Pyrenean stage on Saturday. Out of the mouth of Tour babes, you first heard it.
