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 107th 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.
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