Will Frischkorn's Tour de France diary, stage 18
After yesterday’s insanity on the climb, today’s came at the start area. As we drove down the Alpe, thankfully in cars with the bus waiting at the bottom, there were still hundreds of people camped out roadside.
The camper-van thing over here is nuts — I don’t think you can hold Dutch citizenship without a co-joined camper-van title. Those not camped out roadside had made their way to the start area, and it was unreal. Riding the 300 meters to sign in and back must have taken 15 minutes. When I had radio issues and had to sneak back before we rolled out I nearly missed the start. Wild. Cool, however, to see an amazing number of Americans out there; the many words of encouragement mean a lot.
As for the race, today’s stage was one of the last two available for the opportunists, and as such it’s pretty easy to see which directors aren’t satisfied with their team’s Tours thus far: they had their charges going full-gas from the gun.
Quick Step was probably the most animated, and when they missed a move of seven that looked like the one that would go all day they launched the kind of flat-out full-team chase you wouldn’t normally see unless a GC rider were up the road or it were the finale of the race. In this case, it was simply that they needed to get something out of the stage. When they finally caught the move the field was thankfully primed for something to go clear as 5km later we hit the first real climb of the day, and had the long bomb not been off by then — ouch. Their guy Carlos Barredo put in a beasty day, but got pipped in the end for another Columbia win.
Tomorrow starts with a 20km uphill drag from the gun, opposite of today’s slight downhill for the first 50, and the battle is going to be an epic. The stress that’s going to charge the neutral before the race is even on is already palpable, and for most of us it’ll be the last moment like that of the Tour.
With Saturday being a time trial, effectively a day to conserve for the majority of us, and Sunday’s cruise into Paris before the final circuits, tomorrow is the last shot. We’ll be after the breaks along with the rest of the race, but without desperation. The main focus is still looking after Christian and giving him the easiest race possible until the very last moment — a big TT for him on Saturday for sure.
For a lot of riders it’s clear that yesterday was marked in the book as the end, with the last four just a formality, but keeping the focus these last few is key. It’s good having Christian in his situation to help us with that drive, and the motivation of having a huge crew of VIPs and sponsors around helps give a little nudge as well.
While everybody says that they couldn’t be happier with what we’ve achieved already, a little more would never hurt.
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