AFTER yesterday’s rest day, we were back in the mountains today. With two big climbs coming in the last 60km, we decided it was better for our team not to go in the breakaways and focus instead on getting Romain (Bardet) to the last climb in the best position possible.
omain began the day in seventh place overall, so as the break sparked off the front this morning, we tried to stop any guys who were near to him in the overall standings from escaping. The last thing we wanted was for somebody to gain five or six minutes from behind and leapfrog him in the GC.
While my cousin Dan and Italian Davide Formolo were two of those riders, they were so active today that I eventually had to tell the guys to stop chasing them, as we were using up a lot of energy.
On the third category climb after 50km, Dan went clear in a large group but there were still loads of attacks coming from the bunch, with the pace beginning to shell a lot of riders out the back.
When a chase group went with a few more strong riders in it, our sports director told us to close it but Chris Hamilton thought he meant to get across to it.
As we chased behind, I could see ‘Hammo’ riding on the front of the group ahead. I tried to call him on my radio but it wasn’t working properly so he didn’t hear me.
I only managed to close the gap a few hundred metres after the top, where thankfully the Ineos squad of race leader Egan Bernal took control and the pace eased up.
As the break opened a gap and the peloton began to regroup, I decided to stop and change my radio for a new one from the team car. I could have done it on the move but I didn’t want to take the risk of hanging onto the car on the fast 20km descent that followed. As I stopped, I heard that the Bike Exchange team of Simon Yates had started to pull on the front and the pace had gone up again.
I had a pretty long chase to regain contact in Trento after about 17km in the cavalcade.
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In the 50km-long valley that followed, one of Dan’s team-mates was going mad at the TV motorbike for being too close to the peloton. Often, the camera bike gets too close and the front of the peloton use the slipstream to help them close down the leaders. At one point there was a lot of shouting from Dan’s team-mate, before the TV guy gave him the finger and drove on a bit.
With no specified feed zone on stages any more, and penalties for littering on the race, we usually pick a spot before one of the day’s designated litter zones to get our food handed up to us so that we can throw our empty bottles, musettes and wrappers in the recycling zone.
Today we picked up our food and stashed it in our pockets but after 5km of riding there was no sign of a litter zone for our empties and, with a 10km mountain looming, we were getting a bit worried about having to carry it all up the climb.
It turned out the race had scrapped one of the zones, so Max Kanter sacrificed himself to become a human wheelie bin, dropping the stuff back to the car as we began the climb.
By the top of the Passo di San Valentino, after 155km, there were only about 30 riders left in the front of the peloton, with Michael Storer and I alongside Romain going over the summit. We stayed close to the front for the 15km descent where we almost scraped the barrier on one tight corner. Further back though, they weren’t so lucky and five or six guys came down including pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel.
In the 10km valley that followed, I kept Romain sheltered and got him into the bottom of climb near the front before Michael took over after about 2km of climbing.
Unfortunately, Romain had an upset stomach today, perhaps from eating too many gels or drinking too much in the heat, and he wasn’t feeling great. As I climbed to the top on my own, all I could hear was “Go Romain. Don’t let go!” over and over, so I took my earpiece out for respite.
As I crossed the finish line at the top, there was a replay of Dan winning the stage playing on the big screen. I couldn’t believe it! His group’s lead was only about two minutes at the bottom of the last climb and I thought they had their work cut out for them to stay away. But Dan did an incredible ride to be the only one of the breakaways to survive to the line and win the stage.
Having now won stages at all three Grand Tours of France, Spain and Italy, Dan entered the history books, and I am one proud cousin.
As the chasers split on the mountain, Romain lost a bit of time to the some riders today and gained time on others. He is now up to sixth overall but the podium has moved a bit further away so he was quite disappointed in the bus afterwards.
Giro d’Italia
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