I think we can agree, this years Tour has been a little nuts so far. What with Cav's crash in stage 1 (in his hometown, no less), to just, well, everything. I know, I know. It's The Tour. We expect people to be nervous the first few days, and for some of the riders to go down. And ya know, yesterday was no real exception. Sorry Tejay, but crashes fucking happen. Does it suck that Froome is out of The Tour this year? Yeah, you bet. But it also sucked back in 2012 when Frank Schleck, Cancellara, and Tony Martin withdrew. And do we really need to relive anything from the 2011 Tour, with its plethora of crashes (remember Vino fracturing his femur?), spills (Horner, Boonen, and Wiggo), and flat out freak accidents? Let's not, shall we?
Here's the thing: shit happens. Especially in The Tour. Why does this shit happen? Because it's The Tour. De France. The grandest of the grand tours. It's sole goal is to make you suffer. To forge the steel of your soul in the fire of pain and suffering. So yeah, there's gonna be cobblestones. Did it rain on stage 5? Yes. Can the ASO predict rain a year in advance? Really? Are you kidding me with this? Yes, it's gonna make the stage that much more dangerous and scary. And yeah, you guys are humans and feel people emotions. But the thing is, that doesn't mean that you're not racing the Tour de France. You don't wanna be there? I'll sell a kidney (maybe yours!) to be there instead. You came knowing it was going to be tough. And it's only gonna get tougher. We haven't even gotten into the fucking mountains yet.
The thing is, this isn't your first Tour! Remember in 2012 when you won the white jersey and finished 5th overall? What about in 2013, an admittedly bad year for you, when you still finished 34th out of 181? You know The Tour is tough. At least it's not snow, like the Giro d'Italia has been known to race through.
Look, I know. The rain sucks. Cobbles suck. You're pissed, because now you're sitting 2:11 back from yellow, against a guy who can climb and TT. A guy who, I have to admit, up until yesterday, I was prepared to write off as a top 10, at best. So what? So is every other guy who's looking to wear yellow when you guys arrive in Paris. Know what this means? Attacks. Lots of them. It means you and the rest of the GC guys attack the shit out of the Nibali, and try to break his legs off. Maybe he'll hang on for dear life, like Tommy Voeckler did back in 2011 for a little over a week. But the thing is, between you, Contador, Porte, Talansky, Valverde, and Costa, somebody should be able to go out there and make Nibali suffer. Preferably a lot. Alliances form between teams with a GC guy.
As much as I may like him, don't be Cadel. Don't be a conservative nice guy. Be willing to put it all out on the line, because if you're not willing to try, you're guaranteed to fail.
I know that there's still a lot of racing to be done (a little over 1500 miles left), and that things are far from decided. I just think that maybe calling stage 5 a mistake is a mistake. Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing what else happens over the next couple weeks.
Till the next one, keep the rubber side down, and your skin off the ground!
