Today is a rest day for the Tour de France. What do racing cyclists do on rest days anyway? Not just sit around playing games on their phones, I don’t suppose. According to one source of information, the day will likely consist of the following:
- Light Training
- Nutrition And Hydration
- Physical Therapy
- Mental Recovery
- Sponsor Duties
- Contract Negotiations
- Planning And Strategy
So it’s not really a day off, just not quite so stressful as actually competing. I’m quite surprised by how big a part modern communication technology plays in the planning and strategy bit. Watching the highlights at the end of the day, I am struck by how much the team coach keeps in touch with the riders, giving them information of the race as a whole, advising on when is a good time for the team to move forward en masse, supporting their star rider, their great hope of a place on the podium, urging them on to greater effort. It’s not just a case of having the legs to keep going: it’s also about understanding the strategy!
Yesterday’s stage involved a whole series of section on gravel. That’s the term they used to describe the dirt tracks and unmade roads, little more than old farm tracks, difficult to ride on and liable to throw up a load of dust when dry and turn into a muddy mess when wet. Someone decided, in their wisdom, to include a load of these “roads” on the stage that took from Troyes, round the countryside, and back to Troyes.
In the early parts of the stage there were huge bottlenecks at the entrance to these tracks (rough single track roads you really wouldn’t want to drive your car along if you could avoid it) which caused the peloton to slow down and even on one occasion to come to a complete stop.
I think of gravel as a lot of small stones but most of these roads were just untarmacked, sometimes with a bit of grass growing up the middle, an indication of how little traffic they usually get. Some of them were sign-posted ‘Chemin Blanc’, French for “white road”. The commentators talked about some of the riders having experience of the “Strade Bianche” in Italy. “Strade Bianche” is Italian for “white roads” and it seems there is an actual, official race of that name near Siena, part of the UCI World Tour, cycling's highest level of professional road races. (UCI, by the way is the Union Cycliste Internationale). It was first held as a professional race in 2007 but really began in 1997 as “L’Eroica Strade Bianche”, a recreation bike race for vintage bikes only. In fact, that recreational race is still held on the day after the professional race in March. The original idea was to recreate cycling's so-called "heroic era" from the first half of the 20th century, when most bike races were ridden on dirt or unpaved roads. There you go.
And some riders, such as race leader Pogacar have won the Italian race more than once. Surely this gave them an advantage yesterday!
That’s enough about professional cycling. According to this article, concerns are being raised in The Netherlands about the number of cyclists (and there are lots of cyclists in that flat country) who cycle without helmets. Crazy people! Even on flat roads you can fall off and break your head!
Apart from bike races, France is in the news because of their elections. The country seems to be in some turmoil. It’s one thing for the Left to work together to keep the Right out of government. It’s quite another to think about working together to form government. We shall see!
On the UK political scene, Mr Starmer has now come out and said that he believes the Palestinians have an undeniable right to a Palestinian state. And David Lammy said he would start reviewing issues such as the future funding of the Palestinian relief works agency Unrwa, and the legal advice given to the previous government which said there was no risk that UK arms sales were being used by Israel in breach of international humanitarian law. Time to call again for a ceasefire! Let’s see where that takes us.
In the meantime, however, the attacks and the starvation continue. Here’s Michael Rosen’s King and his Tutor:
'At some point, we have to make peace with our enemies, don't we?' said the King to his tutor.
'I'm not so sure,' said the King's tutor.
'You mean we can go on and on and on forever?' said the King.
'Yes,' said the tutor.
'How come?' said the King.
'We have bigger and better swords,' said the tutor.
'So we keep winning?' said the King.
'Well, if not actually winning,' said the tutor, 'it's not actually losing.'
'But what if there are all those documents to do with having a treaty?' said the King, 'shouldn't we stop then?'
'There are ways round them,' said the tutor.
'Go on,' said the King.
'It works like this,' said the tutor, 'we come up with a peace plan. The other side agree to it. Just as we're about to sign, we come up with extra bits that they didn't agree to.'
'What's the point of that?' said the King.
'Do try to concentrate, sir,' said the tutor, 'that way we keep on and on and on not actually winning but not actually losing either.'
'Is there no other way of doing things?' said the King.
'No,' said the tutor.
'Fair enough,' said the King.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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