Le Tour - 2015 Edition

For the second stage of its visit to Brittany this year Le Tour de France did a Team Time Trial from picturesque Vannes to a tiny little town called Plumelec that is a real hotbed of cycling in Brittany. Plumelec has a cycling festival in August but I was amazed to find that Plumelec has been a tour stage finish town three times before, it's barely bigger than our little commune.

The Team Time Trial (TTT) is a bit different to a normal stage (as the man on the PA kept telling us every ten minutes in excruciating detail ....), the riders ride in teams five minutes after the previous team departure. All the team get the time of the fifth rider over the line so it's important to keep the team together, normally that's not a big problem to get five out of nine riders over the line but Plumelec has a surprise at the end; the two kilometre long hill that is the Cote du Cadodal and after 26km of riding at an average speed of 60kph the sudden upturn takes its toll on tired riders, especially if they aren't climbers and especially if they aren't expected to be in the finishing five.

So our position 300m up the hill was a good one to spot riders hitting the "wall"! And the advantage for the spectator in watching a TTT is that, instead of the whole field (plus or minus a breakaway and some stragglers) passing in about 6 seconds there are 22 separate bits of excitement as each team goes past. But even before that there's the publicity "caravan" advertising all manor of mainstream, odd and usually very French brands.

4m high dog and two tyres on wheels anyone?

And, having bagged a prime spot to get the Union Flag out on the barriers, there's quite a lot of waiting around:

with the constant noise of the helicopters from TV coverage for company:

Of course getting five riders fast over the line is much harder if the team has already lost one or even two of the team of nine. Or, in Orica-Greenedge's case if you are three down after a disaster in Flanders. As teams passed we got quite accurate at predicting performance based on the impression the team gave as they passed - "bit ragged" (Astana, Timkoff-Saxo, MTN Qubeca)

MTN Qubeca - the first Afican squad to contest the TdF. The polka dot jersey for King of the Mountains is worn by Daniel Tekelhaimanot, the first Eritrean to ride in the tour.

Astana with 2014 winner Vicenzo Nibali

6 riders from Timkoff-Saxo including past winner Alberto Contador attack the final climb

"Slow" (FDJ, Europcar),


"Going like a train" (Movistar with eight riders still going all out past us)

Movistar attack the climb

Movistar disappear up the hill, number 58's race is run and he'll now tail in slowly after the others

and "Tight group" (BMC, Sky).

The stage turned into a battle between the major teams of Movistar (Spanish), BMC (the Swiss Team Time Trial World Champions) and Sky (British with the race leader Chris Froome in the yellow jersey). Movistar set a great time and were leaders at the line for a long time. BMC and Sky were never more than a second apart at the intermediate timing points and as Sky reached our vantage point the race was on, led by Chris Froome in yellow:

At the line BMC won by 1 second, on electronic timing it was 0.62s - that's less than a bike's length over 28km. Due to the complexities of cycling it didn't affect the overall classification (the yellow jersey race) to any great extent and Chris Froome carries his lead to the Pyrenees after a rest day tomorrow.

Last time the tour was in Brittany we watched Chris Froome in yellow as well, that time he led all the way to the final stage in Paris, wonder if it's an omen?