2006 Tour
de France – Stage 17: Start Warming Up, Fat Lady...
Right,
let’s get updating…
Julz didn’t have much to say about yesterday’s stage
except that it was RUDE. Stages like that are ok for those teeny-tiny mountain
goats but for the fellas who aren’t paper thin and 5ft nothing tall, that kind
of stage is nothing but taking the short cut to hell. Just consider the
differences in power to weight ratios between the climbers and the sprinters and
you’ll soon begin to appreciate how gruelling those mountains are for the
non-hill-climbing specialists. Julz hated every minute of it. In fact, he didn’t
have very many words to describe the stage that didn’t begin with the letter ‘F’
- and fantastic, fabulous, fun or festive weren’t among them!
As it
turned out there were over 70 fellas who missed the time-cut (although none were
eliminated) so that fairly sums up the stage really.
Today’s stage was a
HUGE milestone for Julz. Although scarred, he made it out through the other side
of the mountain stages and considering what he’s been through so far this
season, that is a great achievement for him. Making it through today also
signalled to the Fat Old Girl to start warming up her vocal chords.
Yay!!!
Julz
went in to today’s stage fairly dakking himself once again. Although it wasn’t a
mountain top finish, it still had enough cols to make a sprinter weep. Also with
the GC as close as it is, it had the potential to be hard, fast and nasty. But
thankfully it blew to pieces on the first climb and a lovely big friendly group
of ‘Can’t-be-arsed-fighting-up-any-more-climbs’ fellas formed a nice big
grupetto and rolled in to the finish all together. Now that made Julz a very
happy man.
And how about Floyd!!! That was an angry man out there today
and bigeezus didn’t he do well. Most impressive. It’s been a bloody good tour
actually. Every day has been a ‘Lucky Dip’ really and it’s nice to see guys
being ‘ballsy’ again.
Tomorrow is a flat-as-a-pancake stage. It’ll be
interesting to see who’s still got the legs to pump out a good
sprint….
Anyway, the word from Julz is that he’s beginning to hoard a few
Summer Ales so that has been one success for him this
Tour!
