No Rest on the 2nd Rest Day
There are only four stages left in the 2010 Tour de France, and after the brutal Stage 16, the contenders took a well-earned day of rest. The previous three stages took the peloton through the Pyrenees to Pau, where, like in 2007 and 2008, the race takes a day of rest. On Thursday, the cyclists will climb the final mountain of the Tourmalet and leave the Pyrenees for two more flat stages and a decisive 52km individual time trial.
Race leaders Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador did not hold a regular rest day press conference, instead opting for a leisurely ride with their teams to keep the blood flowing. Alternately, Lance Armstrong, not suffering from the familiar pressure of being a Tour leader, spent time with his growing family – his three children from his first wife as well as his pregnant partner and their one year-old son.
A lot has changed since the first day of rest on Monday, July 12th. Andy Schleck hasn’t lost his white jersey for the best-young-rider, while Cadel Evans was wearing the yellow jersey after the 8th Stage, which was lost to Schleck in Stage 9 and was then taken over by Contador in Stage 15. Evans has since fallen out of the running for a good overall finish due to an elbow injury suffered early in the race.
Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd holds the green jersey again, after losing it twice to Alessandro Petacchi. At the time of the first rest day, Frenchman Jerome Pineau had been the only rider to wear the polka-dot jersey for the best-climber classification, but lost it the next day to Anthony Charteau, then took it back in Stage 10 and lost it again to Charteau in Stage 12, who has held it since. Rabobank had taken the team classification in the 8th Stage, but since then the fight has been between Team RadioShack and Caisse d’Epargne.
While these two breaks are called ‘rest’ days, you are not likely to find the riders lounging around their hotels. No serious contender actually rests on the rest days, they ride to keep their form, though not so intensely, and perhaps also to escape the media.
“I'll defer to the physios in attendance here, but everyone riding the Tour has to get on their bike Monday,” explained the pros at Podium Café. “If nothing else, there's a backup of lactic acid in the muscles that has to come out, or Tuesday will be one long, sorry day. Every day brings sore legs, but usually the solution is to just line up and ride the next stage. With no stage, the riders will stroll out in their groups for a couple hours of reasonably hard riding, enough to really work the muscles, but not too hard and not for too long.”
The rest day really belongs to the agents, however. The manager of team Quick Step said it’s the only day of the Tour de France that they work. By the second rest day, the pretenders and those past-their-prime have shown their true colours, and the riders who can chase the podium have proven to do so.
For the die-hard fans, the drop-off in Tour de France news can serve as a useful reminder that there is a whole world of cycling out there. The nine-stage Chinese Tour of Qinghai Lake entered its sixth stage on the second rest day of the Tour de France, and the US based BMC Cascade Cycling Classic, the biggest American consecutive stage race, which includes Floyd Landis this year, held its first of five stages.
Tags: