Cycling in its purest form - a crazy day

Stage 9 today. And it’s not an easy one. 142km with a nasty, nasty final climb: 5km at 9%. The parcours before that was also very tricky. After around 30km we got to a hilly section that we had done before. Short, steep walls coming quickly after each other on twisty roads. Then, at around 115km, we had two steep kilometers back-to-back, basically turning it into one effort. After a fast descent and a very irregular ride along the coast (much more than I expected) we would get to the final climb.

A stage that provided the perfect opportunity to play team tactics and try to turn GC upside down. During the flatter first kilometers there were many attempts. The top 10 on GC were watching each other, so it was mostly other riders trying to get away. Eventually, a group of around 12 guys went clear. No direct GC competitors in there, so I was oke with that. The only thing that worried me slightly: Vorarlberg, Aarco and Vendée were all represented, and I have learned during this race that these guys do not control when they have someone in front, even if it would make more sense from a GC or stage win perspective. Especially Vendée U clearly seems to prefer racing rather than controlling.

The group went in the wet opening part of the race. I absolutely hate it when these roads are wet, by the way. They are so slippery. Today a motorbike went down and a few riders crashed after literally going into a corner at 15km/h. Vendée U’s rather-race-than-control tactics became clear when we first hit that hilly section around 30km into the race. They launched it on one of the steep kicks and actually managed to create a split without the yellow jersey. I was there, so I would have happily seen them hammer it, but the gap was too small and things came back together quickly afterwards. The long flat roads that followed wouldn’t have allowed that move to stick anyway. But it showed their intentions.

Then, on the flat intermediate section, a second break of eight riders went, including one of my teammates, Sten (he would turn out to be very important later in the race) and P10 in GC. Dangerous. So now we had roughly 20 riders in front of the peloton and nobody really willing to control. The yellow jersey’s team was playing a dangerous game. Honestly, I was not super comfortable here, as P11 in GC was also in the first break that went. I had 3 minutes on him and he is not the best climber in the race, but if nobody is riding, gaps go out fast. I already lost 5 minutes in a similar situation on stage 4, so I was not looking forward to a déjà vu. Eventually, local team Excelsior started driving it for some time. I still don’t understand why. Maybe simply because they had a pissed-off DS watching 20 riders go up the road with none of his guys there. They weren’t able to reduce the gap, and eventually the yellow jersey blinked, putting one rider on the front.

We blinked next. The gap was going out to 7min+ to that first group and 2-3min to the chase. That's too big and even with the hilly section coming, where we knew we would make up time, this was going out too fast. So we let Denley pull as well and did a bit of lobbying in the peloton. Eventually there were five guys rotating on the front and they brought the gap back to around 6–6:30 before we hit the hills.

And that’s where the race exploded. Vendée U went full gas, reducing the peloton to just 15 riders. I came over the top feeling pretty well and, in the descent that followed, one of their riders got a little gap on one of the kickers. Seeing an opportunity, I crossed over with the white jersey, a teammate of the yellow jersey and 8th in GC, in my wheel. I started driving it on the downhill and the up-and-down sections that followed. I hadn’t necessarily planned this, but the situation was good. I could give myself a head start on the final climb, and the Vendée guy would happily help because he could make up time on GC. Plus, I had Sten still somewhere up the road. Once I saw Sten riding ahead, the message was clear: full gas now! I actually had to temper him down again because he was going really hard on one of the kickers: easy Sten, I need you for 10 more kilometers! Soon after I got to Sten, another Vendée U rider crossed over as well, together with Stüssi. But no yellow jersey. Interesting!

So now we had a little group with four riders rotating full gas: me, Sten and two Vendée U riders willing to turn GC upside down. Stüssi wasn’t really pulling, which I didn’t completely understand, as this looked like his best opportunity to get himself onto the GC podium.

Thanks to the great work of Sten, who was doing monster pulls, we got to the final climb with around a 1:30 lead on the yellow jersey. The final climb literally felt like a highway to hell. It was wide, there was a headwind and it was super steep. A few minutes in, the stronger climbers in the group went. I couldn’t and didn’t want to follow. This climb was so steep that I would rather pace it than try to follow and blow up, which is exactly what happened to the white jersey and P8 in GC. He followed, and I picked him up again later in the climb. (I had actually hoped/expected that at some point on the flatter roads before the climb he would drop back to help his teammate and race leader.)

So on another crazy climb with so many people along the road shouting my ears deaf, I rode as fast as I could to the top. The yellow jersey caught me probably 500m before the finish, meaning he had done an incredibly strong climb as well. Completely cooked at the top, I wasn’t 100% sure about the result. I had seen riders falling back everywhere and others from the chase catching me again. But regardless of the result, I was already happy. As a team, we played it perfectly with the cards we had. And I had thrown all the grinta I had during that final hour of racing. Cycling in its purest form. This stage literally had everything.

Eventually, it turned out that I kept my P7, while quite a few positions above and below me changed. A crazy day! Tomorrow should (!) be a day for the bunch sprint. But I am not so sure after what has already happened in the first 9 stages here.