Will Frischkorn’s Tour de France diary, stage 13
The first radio communication, not one minute after we rolled through K0 was from Millar: “We’ve got a CBF’d Friday boys, it’s bloody wonderful!” The neutral was stressful with a strong crosswind threatening to make the race a crazy one, but I didn’t even get above 200 watts before the field had shut down the road and all you could here were screams, yells and whistles of “pisseee, piano, grupetto.” The first attack was off, and we CREPT for a lovely 30k through the countryside of southern France, truly enjoying a lazy start to the day.
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By Will Frischkorn
Photo: Casey B. Gibson
The first radio communication, not one minute after we rolled through K0 was from Millar: “We’ve got a CBF’d Friday boys, it’s bloody wonderful!” The neutral was stressful with a strong crosswind threatening to make the race a crazy one, but I didn’t even get above 200 watts before the field had shut down the road and all you could here were screams, yells and whistles of “pisseee, piano, grupetto.” The first attack was off, and we CREPT for a lovely 30k through the countryside of southern France, truly enjoying a lazy start to the day.
Eventually, as it had to be, Columbia tossed a few guys on the front and Lotto joined in, keeping the gap under control and slowly starting to reel them back. Pretty much the entire race for the rest of us was spent positioning our leaders, making sure that if, just in case things were to throw down, we wouldn’t be caught out. Made for some relaxed, yet really nervous and tense racing.
Near the end the speed once again went into the stratosphere, some wild roundabouts and road furniture causing a few photo-ready crashes on the final run in. Cavendish proved to the world that he’s truly the man, and the other top sprinters have to be feeling pretty damn demoralized at this point. It will make the few remaining sprint stages a bit less controlled early with few teams willing to take responsibility early.
What actually happened of note today? First, there was a stack in the publicity caravan, somehow taking 10 cars and a Skoda float, locking them together and then burning them all to a crisp. At the 105k point in the course we were all forced into the left lane, looking over at the carnage; petty impressive. Hopefully it was caught on film somewhere … We were all wondering how it could have happened. On a climb, the caravan couldn’t have been doing more than 50kph, so how did all of those cars get locked together so firmly that nobody could get out of the way when the fire started. I guess people figured that they weren’t their own cars, so, well, BAIL!
The fans are worth a mention as well. As we hit the south of France and holiday country the spectators have multiplied and the roadsides are absolutely packed. I’m sure it’s impressive on TV, but it’s truly amazing to be in the middle of them all — a bit scary as well. One exemplary father, taking his three kids out to the show and getting them well placed in the road to see us come by, executed a picture perfect last minute dive backwards when he saw us charging on, leaving the kids mid-road to be mowed down.
Another teenager with a flag on a tree limb was holding the thing at mid-body level right into the middle of the road, surely hoping for some good pictures on the tube, only realizing last second that we were coming right at her and fell backwards with a shriek. If we weren’t on collision courses with some of the loonies it would be pretty entertaining; fortunately, somehow, we seem to make it through mostly without incident.
Now we have one more day to enjoy the flatter roads of Provence before heading into the Alps, and after the Cavendish show today it could be a bit of a wild card.