Cav: he really is impressive – we were at five K to go when Oss passed on his death or glory bid out of the break; he was flying. The bunch Like some high speed linear motored Japanese train – whhoooooooossssshhhhh! Those carbon rims slice the air all the way from Salies-de-Bearn.
We dashed back in to the chipper to watch the finale on the tele, respect to Sky, they were in the race – but Cav really is a cut above.
Ale jumped first but Cav was on him like a cat onto a mouse – the Manx cat was saying at the press conference that he was conserving energy in the sprint, conscious he has the TT on Saturday and want’s the win in Paris on Sunday.
He said that he’s not looking forward to the test; ‘it’s 50 kilometres on my own, I’m usually only on my own for 200 metres!’
It was time to break camp at our ‘home’ in the Printania Hotel in Argeles-Gazost – and say ‘cheerio’ to Ed (the Pole) Tarwinski, who had to go back to Zarragossa to uplift his caravan.
The game plan today was to do ‘mini-interviews’ with who ever we could pick up at the stage start – you have to be flexible, if you have specific guys in mind you can waste a lot of time trying – and failing – to find them.
It worked out well, we got Scott McGrory, Matt White, Allan Peiper, Wilfried Peeters, Dimitri Konyshev and Paolo Barbiere.
We also snapped a few riders, Basso looks ill, Dave Millar looks tired, Jez looks like Jez and Hushovd was having his last day in green.
The quickest way to the finish is via the race route – and that’s what we did.
The crowds were huge, despite the fact that the area – known as Les Landes – is pan flat, sparsely populated and heavily wooded.
The desire to get a look at the bunch flying in to Bordeaux got the better of us and we stopped for frites and a Coke; that’s where we skeked Oss and the express train in hot pursuit.
Bordeaux looks beautiful, we were going to explore but by the time we got through the crush, found the press room and battled with the wi-fi to get our pics away, it was time to head for the digs.
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning, we’re heading south, back to Bordeaux to do the ‘tourist thing’ then follow a rider in the final time trial of the biggest race on the planet – if only there was something good playing on Radio Nostalgie…
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