On paper, it was short on kilometres; on legs, it was tough. The first stage in the Alps featured two hors catégorie climbs and ended with an 18km category one ascent, but this is what the squad had been training for, and with massive turns from Rogers, Porte and Froome, they duly repelled attacks from Evans and Nibali – taking a surprising chunk of time off the defending champion – and ended the dramatic day’s action with Wiggins and Froome first and second in the overall standings.
The mountains are exhausting for everyone, but the satisfaction gleaned from each day playing through the lower gears is enormous. Cavendish took a back seat and entered the spirit in domestique mode. ‘It was nice to do my bit for the team, collecting bottles and raincapes,’ he recalled. ‘I was just around to make the time cut and it’s tougher when you’re not riding your hardest to win, just to survive. It’s a difficult mindset to get into, but I was fine.’
After Kosta’s departure, Eisel and Knees – workers on the flat – had to take turns pulling at the front during the early mountain stages and relished the extra challenge. ‘I was enjoying the mountain stages more than ever before because Cav was going well and also because it was very special to be riding at the front, leading a peloton with the yellow jersey,’ said Eisel. ‘When I look back, I see I was able to give more because we had the yellow jersey. Riding to defend it is energising, motivating. It’s always a good feeling when you’re leading your team at the front, but when it’s the Tour de France, it’s amazing. Every day you suffer, and suffer again, but for the honour of defending the yellow, you know why you’re putting yourself through it.’
Knees, too, found himself flying higher than before: ‘I had to work more in the mountains than originally planned but I surprised myself when I realised how good I was, thanks to our training in Tenerife. When I was getting to the top of the biggest summits, there were 40 guys behind me really suffering.’ As Porte said, ‘If one guy goes out, as Kosta did, you learn new things about each other. There’s always one guy who steps up. You shouldn’t single anyone out from guys of our calibre, but Christian was incredible, the equal of five guys himself.’
For Boasson Hagen, who in any other outfit might be team leader, job satisfaction was high. ‘In 2011, I won two stages, but this year I knew what I had to do – help Bradley win. I understood my job and I had fun. There were some great stand-out moments for me, but especially when I was pulling hard in the mountains and I heard Sean say on the radio that people were getting dropped … I’m proud we did so well in the mountains. I’m proud to have done a good job.’
The bus took the exhausted riders back to the hotel, but the vigilance about performance remained. As usual, there was video analysis of the finish so riders and sport directors could see what had happened. From the jumble of radio talk and personal recollections, you hear the gist of how a race unfolded in the last kilometres, but it’s hard to pinpoint where a good job was done, or a mistake made. In the mountains, with everyone working all day for Wiggins, it was an important boost for each rider to see where they helped and how he was able to finish off the job.
The result of the stage to La Toussuire was fantastic, but one person feeling slightly uncomfortable in the bus de-brief was Froome. As Option 2, he was now very comfortably in second, benefitting from the work being put in to assist Wiggins up the mountains. ‘We were playing safe. We wanted to win the Tour and Froome was a great asset,’ said Yates. ‘The pulling he did at the front was minimal so he enjoyed an easy ride. But there was a glitch. We had a plan for Stage 11. He thought he’d done what was asked of him, and then was free to go … but Brad was unprotected and in trouble. I had to call Froomey back over the radio. There’s nothing malicious about him, he had just gone off plan. I was pissed off. It put us in a situation where we had to answer the press, clarify the mission to the team … but, as a whole, the day was up there with some of the best performances I’ve witnessed in cycling.’
