Tour de France or Thor de France

July 6 Stage 2 Auray/Saint-Brieuc (Report and Pictures)

Getting out on the bike this morning gave a beautifully clear indication, if any were needed, of the leg-sapping nature of this rugged Brittany landscape. Each country lane out of the hotel seemed to end up in a sheltered cove, very pretty but tantamount to a succession of hill intervals at seven in the morning. Things could have been worse though, it could have been raining.

The mass gallop won by Thor Hushovd - Pic fotoreporter sirotti

Rain threatened to make stage 2 from Auray to St Brieuc a trial for the men of the Tour as a lashing squall swept over the peloton on the Mur de Bretagne and local boy David Le Lay seized the corresponding slackening of pace to launch himself off the front and bridge the gap to the breakaway duo of Thomas Voeckler and Sylvan Chavanel doing so in some style, taking with hime his team leader Christophe Moreau who picked up some valuable KOM points in the process.

The Breton injected a little passion and spark into what was otherwise a fairly lacklustre stage. Inside the last 4 kilometres the quartet still had close to a minute advantage with Moreau digging deep up the final incline of the day making the sprinter’s team trains shovel in more coal to shut them down.

When they did inside the last kilometre, Norwegian thunder rang through St Brieuc as Credit Agricole’s fast man and winner of the green jersey in 2005 stormed through to take the victory on a tricky little uphill finish, tricky enough in fact to catch out a group of contenders who collided with a barrier holding up the advance of Get Steegmans in the process. The big Belgian, who won a stage in his home tour recently, should have a better chance today on a much flatter finish in Nantes.

Almost as exciting as the stage was the process of getting in and out of St Brieuc itself. Three times in the morning we followed the official route guide to within one kilometre of the finish and three times we were turned back by the Gendarmerie, each time collecting more and more press cars in a convoy as we toured the not so scenic industrial quarter. Finally under the sheer weight of dozens of press cars all clamouring to get to the finish the normally stony faced boys from ‘les flick’ caved in , through up their hands in a typically Gallic demonstration of confusion and stepped aside.

Officialdom can cause havoc at the Tour de France for the press corps and such shenanigans added nearly an hour to our travel time, cutting our necessary two hours preparation time in half.

However, luxury awaits us all after stage 3 with a welcome two days in the same hotel at Cholet. A chance to get in some miles in Cholet and no chance of a trip to the beach.