Stage 2 NICE HAUT PAYS>NICE - Wouldn't It Be Nice.

Stage two and Le Tour continued its stay in Nice but this time it’s off to the mountains in the hinterland. Sunny blue skies were quite the contrast to the previous day’s rain that made for treacherous conditions out on the road.

Robbie got his hands on a copy of the medical report that listed the damage done in the peloton. There were too many injuries to list so the report was a one-liner with the words FUBAR on the page. Sad to Philippe Gilbert, John Degenkolb and Rafael Valls have left Le Tour after just one day.

Over in the fancy Plat du Tour kitchen chef Guillaume Brahimi was not so much cooking as preparing Steak Tartare with Pommes Gaufrettes. Raw beef would normally not be my first choice on the menu but this one looked pretty good. The pommes gaufrettes are fancy potato crisps used to scoop up the steak tartare. If you can’t be bothered making the pommes gaufrettes you could always break open a packet of Samboy salt and vinegar.

Speaking of nutrition Dr Bridie McDonnell commented about the quality of school dinners in France compared to that in the US. This inevitably lead to a discussion about the old school tuck shop. For me in tech school it was pies, sausage rolls, hot dogs and how good were egg flip Big Ms? One school speciality was a sausage roll in a hot dog roll which is getting into Frankenfood territory.

Out on the course it was flag in for the big red car and it was game on with the breakaway going off the front that included three-peat World Champion Peter Sagan in green on the hunt for more points.

Early on in the stage and FDJ rider David Gaudu looked to be in trouble with a painful sacrum resulting from a crash in stage one.

But there’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a little ‘magic spray’ from the medical car.  Oddly, it was sprayed on to the jersey and not the skin where you would expect.

Whether it was the spray or taking advantage of the peloton slowing for a nature break, Gaudu gradually got himself back into the main bunch.

It was warm day out on the road and Jumbo Visma was seen bringing out the heavy duty bottle vest.

There was a Darwin Grand Fondo shout out from SBS host Tomo. I actually know someone who participated in it that morning and I'M. NOT. JEALOUS. AT. ALL.

Darwin seemed to the flavour of the day with @sitdowninfront’s pooch Ittybitty making it to the screen in the #Tourdog category. Reports are the fame has already gone to his head.

Back to the racing and the Devil himself was seen in a mask. As much as the Tour has been a relief from the chaos and disruption of 2020 there are always reminders that the threat from the virus is far from over.

 

Wouldn't it be nice...to go on holidays again?

Troll DJ couldn’t help him or herself busting out Wouldn't it be Nice by the Beach Boys and Nice in Nice by The Stranglers

Benoit Cosnefroy went off like a frog in a sock to be the first over the top of La Colmaine. The spaghetti roads of the Nice hinterland proved a challenge to the TV motos as foot pegs scraped the road on the corners. Maybe they should get shorter pegs?

In the pretend caravan of commentary Mattie, Robbie and Bridie effortlessly found their rhythm and it’s a joy to hear the trio. Dissecting the previous day’s commentary Robbie noted how they 100% wrong about everything and Mattie said it at least they were consistent.

And we have a new Robbieism - Astana Karma – which is what you get trying to be a little too cute and attempting to fly down a descent on slippery road.

Mark Renshaw and Macca popped in for chat and the team took time out to chat with Ineos Grenadier ‘sparring partner’ Cameron Wurf on holiday in sunny Monaco. It was all good and well hearing what he’d been up to going from cycling to triathlon and back to cycling but the question on everyone’s lips from lockdown Melbourne was, “What does a holiday look like?”

In the last kilometres of the race the pace started to pick up. Murder hornet Tom Dumoulin went down after touching Michal Kwiatkowski’s wheel.

After a sprint for the line against Marc Hirschi and Adam Yates it was Julian Alaphilippe’s turn to wear the maillot jaune.

It was an emotional victory for Alaphilippe who dedicated the win to his father who died in June.

Stage 1 NICE MOYEN PAYS>NICE - Who's Still Standing?

 

After months of sitting around smoking cigarettes, reinforcing trenches, having a shave, darning socks and writing a letter to your sister (odd for me considering I don’t have a sister) the one we’ve been waiting for is finally here – the 107^th edition of the Tour de France.

Stage one and we’re in Nice on the French Riviera. Nice. Now, when I think of Nice am I alone in seeing a vision of Elton John on the beach in a boater hat wearing Geraint’s sunnies?

There was no mucking around for SBS who went straight to the coverage of La Course by Le Tour de France. Annemeik van Vleuten was leading the charge as Marianne Vos, Demi Vollering, Lizzie Deignan, Longo Borghini and Kasia Niewiadoma hung on to her wheel for dear life.

In a sprint to the line on the Promenade des Anglais Deignan pipped Vos, in the words of commentator Mattie Keenan, by a ‘deep dish’ wheel.

The podium was free of the usual hoopla due to Covid social distancing but it was elbow bumps all round for Deignan, Vos and Vollering.

Speaking of commentators (will get to Robbie McEwen later) the couch peloton welcomed Dr Bridie O’Donnell to the caravan of commentary, albeit a pretend caravan since we can’t go anywhere this year.

The podium was free of the usual hoopla due to Covid social distancing but it was elbow bumps all round for Deignan, Vos and Vollering.

Post La Course Bridie spotted a large yacht at the Port of Nice and noted that, “If you’re a triple decker boat you know things are going well”. Indeed, that boat was big enough to eat the little ones around it for breakfast.

As the Grand Depart loomed it was time for the SBS commentary team; hosted by the one and only Mike Tomalaris; to gather for their Zoom meeting. They had a surprise for Robbie rolling post win video tape from 1999, his first Tour victory on the final stage on the Champs Elysees in Paris. At the time Robbie hit back at the doubters with a “stick that it in your back pocket” and with that a future career in cycling commentary was born.

The couch peloton was introduced to special guest Mark Renshaw who noted, “there are some nice little climbs”. Mark, you will fit in well with our level of pundamentalism.

Robbie and Keeno are separated in different cities this year and Robbie made a ‘Keeno punching bag’. Geez guys, do you commentate on cycling or boxing when you’re together?

Now that Gabs has hung up the apron, cooking duties are now with Guillaume Brahimi and presented the first of his ‘Plat du Tour’ recipes kicking off with ‘Ratatouille with tapenade’. Hang on, is there any butter in ratatouille?

Yeah, yeah, YEAH!

Ad watch – Yes I know it’s a bit early to get stuck into the ads but that Simonds Homes staycation themed offering is all good and well for us in lockdown but not for the boss of the company who scarpered to Queensland on a luxury yacht. Oh, and is it a triple decker by any chance?

Welcome to ‘Richie Porte’s backyard’, it was time for the riders to start the big loop. The roads were dry which made for some great racing in La Course but then drops of rain appeared on the TV camera lens.

Michael Schar, Cyril Gautier and Fabien Grellier made a dash for it off the front (tell ‘em they’re dreamin’ on a sprint stage) and it wasn’t long before it started proper raining and that’s when the crashes started to happen on super slippery roads.

It was carnage and had me seriously starting to wonder if this was a tribute stage to the former Euskaltel Euskadi team, aka The Crash Carrots. And with so many crashes, who will still be standing at the end of the day?

As the rain got heavier the peloton was doing their own version of WAP - Wet Ass Pushy.

The peloton looped around Nice, Robbie spotted some seagulls ‘washing their chips’ in the ‘Cascade of Custard’ Er, I think it’s Cascade du Casteu? Anyway, it’s bit early in the Tour to be hitting the hard stuff but we can all agree we were given a taste of what it would be like in Willy Wonka's Custard Factory.

And what was it with that little blue train chasing the peloton everywhere by the Mediterranean coast that had hung around from the women’s race? After a while it began to look a little menacing, cursed even.

However a curse could not explain away the stupidity of Astana turning the screws on the ascent of the Cote de Rimiez on treacherous slippery roads as ‘Superman’ Miguel Angel Lopez found out losing control and head-butting a sign with his chin. Remarkably Lopez got staright back into the race, which goes to show that so long as the sign isn’t made of Kryptonite he’ll be fine.

Needless to say it dawned on the peloton they needed to calm their farm if they wanted an even chance of finishing the first stage in one piece, resulting in the most gingerly descent ever witnessed in the history of professional cycling.

At the pointy end of the race and in the absence of Caleb Ewan who had his chances ruined by, you guessed it, another crash and Alexander Kristoff won his first race of the season and now he’s in yellow.

Background image courtesy of Hey Reflect'o. They make some nice looking masks.