TDF 2020, Stage 17 Grenoble – Meribel-Col de la Loze 170 km
Superman wins up the new long and steep Col de la Loze. Roglic, 2nd, gains time on rest of GC favorites.
DENVER, CO – Another post that shall easily write itself! My fingers shall click the keys with such delight and emphasis after watching the best stage of this 2020 Tour! The profile of the stage is simple to explain, but O! was it difficult for the riders to ride!
After about 80 kilometers of relatively flat valley roads to start the stage the peloton would first scale the mighty Col de la Madeleine, its 25th appearance on the Tour de France. Hors categorie (“Beyond Category”) it is ranked, the highest ranking a climb can be given. A long brutal climb it always is at 17 km long and 6% average gradient, surely it is the perfect leg-softener before the finale. And historically with the likes of Polka Dot legends Lucien Van Impe and Richard Virenque having been the first to crest the top three times each in eras long ago, it was the perfect place to finally kick off the Polka Dot Jersey competition properly. Since Stage 2, Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R) has been wearing the Polka Dots without much competition, but with the points available today it was time for a climber of the highest quality to emerge who is worthy to reign as the King of the Mountains (KOM). The first over the top, in the breakaway, was Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) sprinting ahead of our Musketeer Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quickstep) to take maximum points. Thus Carapaz took the maximum 20 KOM Points, Alaphilippe 15, their two breakaway companions in 3rd and 4th took 12 and 10 respectively. Then from the peloton the White Jersey of Best Young Rider, Tadej Pogacar (UAE), made sure to grab the next 8 Points available for 5th over the top. Yes, both Pogacar and Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) inadvertently began the day only a few KOM Points off the lead in the competition, with those 8 points Pogacar took the virtual lead in the King of the Mountains competition. If there were not better stories to tell on the stage, I would plead my case to the dear Reader-jury to silence those who rip on the beautiful Polka Dot Jersey—how can such haters existence? Tomorrow perhaps. Yet we move on now to the stage’s finale, stage honors and more KOM points were available at the top of the stage’s mighty summit finish.
After a long descent, it was time for the final Beyond Category summit finish up the Col de la Loze, a new climb to the Tour and surely one destined to be accounted among the legends in the coming decades. O! Dear Readers, it has everything we fans dream of for a summit finish deep into the Tour de France. First it is very long at 21 km, second it comes with a respectable 7.8% average gradient. Ah! But here are the key features, the final few highest kilometers are not even a proper road, but a 4-meter-wide bike path over the pass to connect one town to another, and dear Readers….those final kilometers are very steep. Yes, yes, I tell you long stretches averaging 14-16% gradients, even 18% to 24% in some spots! And with the breakaway less than 3 minutes up the road, surely the GC favorites would duke out the stage win. Yes, I don’t think Henri Desgrange, the father of the Tour, could have dreamt of a better finishing climb for today’s stage; in fact this would be the highest point the 2020 Tour would reach and thus a special Henri Desgrange prize would be awarded to the stage winner in addition to 40 KOM Points.
And the riders, O! how they set it up perfectly! The little talked of Bahrain-McLaren team took command of the race on the lowest slopes of the Madeleine and my, my how dominant they were! Bahrain rode for their team captain Mikel Landa who was in 7th Place on the GC to start the day, 2:13 behind Roglic. Their sprinter Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-McLaren) pulled a mini-Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) doing such a strong turn on the Madeleine, shedding so many riders behind who’s day would be done. Ah! Bahrain-McLaren, they came to the bottom of the Loze with still 5 riders left in a group of 40 or 50 total. Up the road Carapaz was dropping our Musketeer and other breakaway companions, but Bahrain was closing down his gap in metronomic fashion. Let me proclaim their names for their fame deserves to be increased, the Bahrain-McLaren workers who shredded the peloton: Slovenian Matej Mohoric, Dutchman Wout Poels, Basque Pello Bilbao, Italian Damiano Caruso, all turned themselves inside out for Basque leader Mikel Landa on this day. With their bright orange uniforms they seemed like a construction crew, but that is inaccurate: this day they were a demolition crew. Yes, all day on these two climbs they took their drills and sledgehammers to all the riders in the peloton. On the earliest slopes of the Loze, the peloton was already down to just 33 men and 5 of them were the Bahrain destroyers on the front. Of course, the team of the Tour, Jumbo-Visma, still had equal numbers up there, but who could have expected to see such efforts from anonymous Bahrain-McLaren today? They whittled the peloton done to 20 riders, cracking Jumbo’s Robert Gesink and George Bennett—extremely respectable climbers! They hawked down Carapaz to a mere dozen-second lead. They cracked the mighty Wout Van Aert with 7 km still to ride. And then they hit this hyped-up bike path…and it lived up to the hype.
With the last Bahrain, Damiano Caruso, still on the front for Mikel Landa, the only individuals left with them were Tom Dumoulin and Sepp Kuss (both Jumbo-Visma) working for team leader and Yellow Jersey wearer Primoz Roglic. Astana’s Superman Lopez was there, EF’s Rigoberto Uran, Trek’s Richie Porte, Movistar’s Enric Mas and Alejandro Valverde, and White Jersey Pogacar had domestique David de la Cruz (UAE) for support. Of the 12 riders left, 9 of the them were Top 9 on General Classification, these are the finales we dream of for a summit finish at the Tour de France. Meanwhile Carapaz was still ahead hitting the first 14-15% gradients, O! it was already taking a mighty effort; why, with such small gears he looked like a mountain biker spinning up the rocky steep trails. And then de la Cruz came to the front for one last effort to break some of the leaders for his man in White, Tadej Pogacar. Instantly, Caruso was finished, and old Valverde with him. Dumoulin cracked next. And soon yes, despite all his mates’ work, Mikel Landa cracked also. Blame him not, dear readers! Bahrain grabbed the bull by the horns today, not allowing themselves to be pushed around by the mighty stinging-wasps of Jumbo-Visma in their yellow and black jerseys: better to try and fail than not try at all. Today, for the first time, Bahrain has won many hearts. But the carnage did not end there! Uran was done and Yates cracked with him. And with his teammate de la Cruz’s turn done, Pogacar went to the front of that most elite group. “But what was this?” we thought. “It’s a bird! It’s a plane!”
Yes, dear Readers, it was Superman! It is only his first Tour de France, but surely, this was a long time coming, O! how I have waited years for this moment when Superman would finally don his cape in France on an epic mountain such as this one! With 3.6 km remaining, Superman Lopez was flying off the front, and with that Enric Mas was finished and Richie Porte was scrambling to latch onto a wheel. Carapaz’s lead up front was only 10 seconds now as Superman chased him down—quote me not on this, but I may be heard these two are good friends: fishing partners—with Pogacar, Roglic, and Jumbo teammate Sepp Kuss all on his wheel. With 3.2 km to go, Roglic had his fabulous lieutenant ride on the front of the group to control the pace; O! dear international Readers, I cannot describe how great it feels to finally have an American counted among the most mighty ones again. Sepp Kuss, the American from the mountains of Colorado, kept the pace high and caught Richard Carapaz with 3 km to go…and then Kuss did something seemingly very strange. There was a crest and then a dip in the road, and Kuss rode on with Lopez on his wheel opening a gap to his leader Roglic riding with Pogacar. Every alarm bell had been sounding at this point already, every commentator was already raising their voice and gasping for air while trying to convey every detail, but this heightened everyone’s heart rates. Drama and confusion were reigning as Kuss and Superman rode up the road while the Carnage Cam caught a seemingly struggling Roglic and Pogacar neck-and-neck floundering behind on the steep grassy windswept slopes with the dark clouds and the jagged peaks towering above; O! the image of the Tour thus far! The gap was never more than 10 or 12 seconds to Rog and Pog, but with such extreme gradients, things were extremely tense. “Why isn’t Sepp waiting for Roglic?” we all screamed at the screen, “Surely, he must wait, Roglic is in trouble, his whole Tour is on the line!” What the right answer was may not matter, but I think Jumbo here botched a clever ploy: Roglic was supposed to bridge to Kuss and Superman without Pogacar. But Superman and Kuss were going too well, thus Kuss eased off a little and Superman rode on alone. Then Roglic bridged to Kuss, and Pogacar could not match his compatriot’s acceleration across the gap—finally a crack in the armor of young Pog!
But Superman was already taking advantage of the situation, flying as fast as he could. O! Finally, finally he looked again like the Superman that won our hearts for the first time with those two Vuelta stages in 2017. Aye! Both came on great summits, long climbs such as this in southern Spain. O! How he flew away up the slopes from the likes of Chris Froome (then Team Sky) and Alberto Contador, el Pistolero; what mighty days were those! And yet since those days, in the Grand Tours he has been too anonymous for my taste: riding to high places and fine podiums, but without the electricity of those two Vuelta stages when he had enough voltage to light up all of Paris, the City of Light. But finally, in his first appearance in the largest race, at the perfect time, Superman of old was flying once more. To see such performances as this is why we love the sport, why we come back for more, it was so great to see Superman put on such a show, to fly away from the competition.
And yet, I dare pause here; a break in the hottest parts of the action may be daring on my part, dear Readers, but let us see if it proves warranted. Surely, you are thinking, as all of us originally did, that Miguel Angel Lopez received the nickname Superman for the way he flies up the mountains away from the competition as I have been describing here. Surely it is applicable to such situations, but that is not the source of the nickname: the real story is much more outlandish and unbelievable to where I was thankful the commentators retold it today on the broadcast. It needs reconfirmation, for it is one of the cycling details that is too far-fetched for a movie script, it is too astounding to be real and yet it is. Many years ago, when young Lopez was still growing up in Colombia, he was riding home on his mountain bike when he stopped at a gas station. After coming out of the station, he found a few thugs attempting to steal his bike, but the 5’ 3” (1.64 m), 130 lb (59 kg) climber fought them off. But in the fight the thugs drew knives and stabbed him in the leg twice. Despite all that, he saved the bike, recovered from the wounds, and became a professional cyclist. Since that day, he’s been known as Superman and it is the greatest nickname in cycling since Vincenzo Nibali’s Shark of Messina. Dear Readers, now you know why I absolutely love this nickname and strictly stick to it. What a story, stranger than fiction, truly you can’t make this stuff up.
And on Superman flew today. The sky was getting darker, the gradients were so severe the riders all seemed to be pedaling into a 50 km/h (30 mph) headwind. Superman had a 5 second gap on Kuss and Roglic and they were distancing Pogacar even more. But finally, Kuss’ tank was empty: a mighty job accomplished! Roglic would have to ride the last 1.6 km alone in hot pursuit of Superman. The gap was 8 seconds, and behind Rog had Pog on the limit at a similar time gap. Roglic’s gear seemed so large as he churned out such powerful revolutions, one by massive one. Meanwhile Superman’s cadence was higher, he seemed to be going at a better clip and looked better in every way. While compared to both, Pogacar looked to be in a world of hurt. At 800 meters to go the gaps basically stabilized, but it was still an agonizing ordeal to get to the top, every meter still rising, every meter still stinging. Superman had 10 seconds on Roglic, he was riding himself into 3rd Place on GC today with all the other contenders blown out the back by his own Kryptoian attacks. Though Roglic was chasing, it was shaping up to be a good day for his GC campaign as he would take time on all his biggest rivals, including Pogacar, besides the only dozen or so seconds he would lose to Superman who he had over a 90 second gap on at the beginning of the day. Behind, Pogacar was digging the deepest we have yet seen him go, but he was defending 2nd Overall and riding himself into the Polka Dot Jersey as King of the Mountains leader. In those final hundreds of meters Pog seemed even to be closing the gap on Roglic, only to have it go out again on the final sting: a steep ramp of 16%. Pog would end up losing 15 seconds to the Yellow jersey. Roglic’s gap to Superman would be the same 15 seconds, but in both cases Bonus Seconds would also be factored in for minor differences. But up at the head of the race, Superman was riding to his greatest victory.
O! such stages as these are the ones we shall remember, the ones we shall see of highlights in years to come when we hearken back to Tours of old: the day Superman flew away from the Slovenians. Surely, the Colombians shall celebrate it most of all, as they always do; upon finishing this piece I shall try to find their commentator’s surely rowdy and unwieldly sensational call of it—truly they are always something to behold, barely coherent and yet more passion has yet to be transmitted across the worldwide web. Up Superman Lopez came to the line, he could not ease up, he had to ride it out for every second on GC. Upon his front wheel crossing the line, he managed to sit up and with a scream of joy he did a celebratory upper-cut fist pump—probably as he did to one of the bike thieves years ago. The road was still steep, he had no momentum and he was almost already at a standstill. He quickly made the sign of the cross, put one foot down, and softly keeled over his handlebars breathing heavily after the exhausting effort. It was his greatest day of cycling.
Cycling Odysseys 