After a day of rest and recovery, the 150 remaining riders of the Tour de France peloton returned to the roads in the south of France, and it was a stage which represented a final chance for many – the sprinters, of course – including Mark Cavendish, who would perhaps be riding his final Tour de France sprint ever – but also, some of the rouleurs and bigger riders who aren’t capable of competing in either bunch finishes or in the hills might perhaps have considered staging a coup and giving the fast men a run for their money.

This guy was keeping an eye on proceedings

They might have, but they didn’t. No, in our rollercoaster race of all or nothing, today fell very squarely into the ‘nothing’ camp, and while the peloton probably had a nice relaxing day out, getting themselves back up to speed, it was a day when full coverage from kilometre zero felt somewhat unnecessary. Can’t we just have an in between day that doesn’t insist on being either FULL GAS ALL DAY THIS IS THE FASTEST RECORDED STAGE IN TOUR DE FRANCE HISTORY or ‘no thanks, we’re on strike’? No? Fair enough.

Proof that the crosswinds existed. And weren't up to much.

It was a hot day on the south coast and there were some lovely sweeping shots of the beach and there might have been a bit of zoning out and daydreaming about summer holidays. Or even just of summer as a concept (I'm British, it rains here). We had threats of crosswinds and while flags were flapping here and there, it didn’t amount to much in the end, and once again the much-hyped echelons failed to materialise. Fast forward to the intermediate sprint, which was won by Bryan Coquard and allowed Thomas Gachignard of TotalEnergies to launch himself off in pursuit of he most combative rider prize, and launch he did, gaining a good two and a half minutes at one point before the peloton reeled him back in, in time to go to work. There were many roundabouts to contend with, and it was all going so well (apart from an almost oops moment for Uno-X – see below Tweet) until a late crash brought down a few riders including the green jersey – Biniam Girmay.

The final sprint was essentially the Champs-Elysee of this year’s Tour, given that it was the absolute last chance for the sprinters, and a stressful final saw many sprinters out of position at the key moment, but not Jasper Philipsen, whose Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates played their roles in the lead-out train to perfection, and enabled the rapidly improving sprinter to take his third stage win, the third man at the race to achieve a hat-trick of victories.

So far, so good regarding the news so far as Biniam’s continuation in the race, as he and his team report no fractures and that he is planning on continuing on in the race – but more eyes will be on the intermediate sprints now than perhaps there would otherwise of been, with Philipsen and Alpecin scenting an opportunity, though of course, not in the circumstances they would have preferred. It’s a clear reminder of how everything can be going in your favour in a Grand Tour, until one moment of misfortune.

Stage 17 : Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux - Superdévoluy

About tomorrow...

1-1-1 Things of the Tour de France

by Mathieu Fraisse

one food, one fact and one local rider, for every place on edition 111 of Le Tour

1 food: Ravioles of the Dauphiné

Stage 17 of the Tour de France will be brushing the Dauphiné area. Dauphiné gave its name to the newspaper “Dauphiné Libéré” and consequently to the famous cycling race of “Critérium du Dauphiné libéré”.

Anyway, enough with the cycling talk, let's talk about food and today's meal is the ravioles de Romans!

The raviole is basically two layers of pasta made out of tender wheat flour, eggs and water, surrounding a filling of Comté, faisselle, butter and parsley, similar to a very tiny Italian ravioli.

They're usually served after being poached in hot water but can also be grilled in a frying pan.

1 rider: Pierre Latour

The former Tour de France white jersey winner in 2018, Pierre Latour was born in the Ravioles city of Romans-sur-Isère in 1993.

True to his roots, he's still living in the area today and, despite not riding Tour de France this year, Latour is familiar with the roads of stage 17.

Besides the TDF white jersey, Latour's biggest success is winning La Vuelta 2016 stage 20 on top of Alto de Aitana.

1 fact: a marathon record… backwards!

As if running a marathon wasn't hard enough, why not beat the record of marathon running but backwards!?

During the Drôme Marathon, on April 23rd, Guillaume de Lustrac decided to run the entire course backwards to beat the world record. He completed the marathon in 3 hours and 25 minutes.

The old record was 3 hours and 38 minutes so he beat it by a nice margin. A friend of Guillaume recorded the entire race to submit the record to the Guinness World Records. Congratulations 🎉

STAGE PREVIEW

Profile reproduced from Tour de France official site

Right. Sprint teams, stand down. GC teams, cool your jets. Tomorrow is breakaway day, and I swear to all that is two-wheeled and holy, if we don't get some super turbo charged breakaway antics and a new name on the winners list, well. I don't know what I'll do to be honest other than write about it tomorrow with a sense of mild resignation.

But COME ON, people. Look at this profile. It's CRYING OUT for attack-ity fun times. False flat uphill for the first 70-odd kilometres followed by an uncategorised climb will make it tough, for sure, and the intermediate sprint will complicate matters (because now that Jasper's closed the gap to less than 30 points it's very much 'game on' in the points competition), but three late climbs could see it all kicking off - let's have it.

WBR Team Predictions:

Mathieu: Romain Grégoire from the breakaway

Peter: Tadej Pogacar

Stine: A giga Breakaway consisting of everyone who has been breakaway mainstays get away.

The GC battle reels them all in again, but fuelled by pure spite Carapaz and Halland Johannesen breaks away again and go to the line together. Carapaz looks primed for a win but celebrates too early allowing Halland Johannesen to pass on the bad celebration baton in style and in person.

This may or may not cause a twitter feud between Vaughters and Thor Hushovd...

Before you go...

Just in case you missed it, Uno-X Mobility's Magnus Cort really has dyed his moustache blue - as he promised he would, were he to reach 200,000 followers on Instagram.

And this honest answer from Mathieu van der Poel kind of summed up how we felt about today's stage.

REST DAY RIDDLES - SOLUTIONS

We hope you enjoyed spending rest day working on our brainteasers - here are the solutions (if you haven't tried them puzzles yet WHY NOT?! Quick, don't look at the answers and go back to stage 15's Dispatch to give them a try.

  1. Cycle-Logical

Matej Mohorič

Robbe Ghys

Hugo Page

  1. Anagrams

Lenny Martinez TINY MENN LAZAR

Giulio Ciccone OG ICONIC UNCLE

Frank van den Broek VODKA ANN NERF BERK

  1. Teammate merger

Until tomorrow, au revoir!

💡
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