Mads Pedersen wins, what a talent craze, in the heart of Saint Étienne where, at the end of the 19th century, the same workshops that made hunting guns began making bicycles, the same milling and turning apprentices, the same machines, the same pipes .
On the contrary, it is not difficult to imagine the Danish cyclist, of which class, waving an arm with a victorious rifle as he crosses the finish line, a bike ahead in an acceleration of 250 meters, ahead of his last two breakaways, a one Englishman from London, Wright, and a Canadian from Quebec, Houle, people of the cold, the three on the hottest day of the tour so far, on Saturday more and on Saturday Mende, a new ring on the slopes for the Vingegaard fight – Pogacar, the fills our days and gives meaning to a race that so far – three stage wins with three different riders and a solid yellow jersey and three days between the Baltic Sea and the North – is the Tour of the Danes.
Pedersen would be at least more conspicuous than the cartoon Buffalo Bill killing bison from a bicycle that was used on large billboards to advertise the manufacturers of the region, the cradle of the bicycle in France, at the beginning of the last century. Let it be known, Pedersen, 26, from Jutland, who has traversed the Tour, does nothing, he is not dedicated to wiping out bison from the country or starving the Indians of the Plains, but to chasing prestigious victories, a world championship here near torrential rain and the cold of Harrogate in Yorkshire in 2019 – a stage of the Tour close by and he doesn’t need or use guns for that either, nor does he use more weapons than he can conceals a compact body, top speed, daring. And Faith, like his fellow fugitives, also three massive roles, tall men over 1.90m who suffered more from the heat and succumbed to its effects, Ganna, Jorgenson and Küng, exhausted, and his Trek assistant Quinn Simmons, who worked him until exhaustion.
The seven believed in an escape for which nobody gave a euro on average on the downhill run through the great Rhône gorge, annoying wind, heat, endless climbs, 215 kilometers and more than 45.6, which turned out to be fatal for the sprinters , and fertile land for the vineyards of Shiraz to the mountains of the Massif Central and the sources of the Loire, where, as geologists enthusiastic about the Tour explain every day (geotdf.org), on what material the asphalt along the memory of beautiful cyclists are made travel, crystalline granite mountains and exuberant volcanoes meet, pure flow, liquid magma like blood, entering all cracks, conquering them, like La Palma, like Vingegaard, and explosive, thick magma like syrup maple, smearing everything after smashing the earth blasted, like the ones in Tonga, in form only the Pogacar can be.
The exuberant Vingegaard, a teddy bear that brightens the mood and invites you to cuddle, and the rugged and tender Pogacar in search of his yellow, his treasure, are expected to explode and collide on the slope of the Mende airfield Hot Climb, designation of origin since joining the tour on July 14th ’95, and Jalabert and ONCE making Indurain suffer on his fifth tour. Three kilometers at 10.2%, which Pogacar does not know. “I only know her from what I’ve seen on the networks. I never uploaded it,” says the Slovenian, who appears to have learned a lesson in Granon, controlling impulsiveness, discovering that sometimes things go wrong, and he’s cautious. “It’s looking good. I think he can make a difference, but we’ll see…”
Vingegaard only goes onto the podium to retrieve his garment and only speaks after pedaling for a few minutes with an icy vest over his torso. His body, overheated during the stage, cools down from the warm air and his mind goes numb as he can barely babble on several occasions, let’s see, yes Mende seems to be doing better than Pogacar but we’ll see it’s going to be a tough day . Yes, yes, let’s see what happens …
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