The Tour de France first explodes, then regroups with the victory of Pello Bilbao in the name of Gino

In the first kilometers of the 10th stage of the Tour de France, Vulcania-Issoire, the concept of group had lost its meaning. The same was true for many terms and many idioms that are used when talking about cycling, racing, runners. There were no pursuers or pursuers, whoever was first pursued turned into a pursuer in an instant. The road climbed and the riders scattered along the road, small and big crises alternated at the end of the race, while in front, in what we usually call a breakaway, also the yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar found themselves. And while this was happening on the opposite side of the progress of the runners instead of the sprinters there was David Gaudu, one who had to be, at least in his plans, with the others to compete for the podium and not to chase after out of breath and fear of arrive half an hour after those who wanted to escape.

Thinking about how many “hard-fought” stage starts that we’ve read without having the opportunity to see it, one would think that much of the beauty we’ve seen in past years has often been only half-beauty.

For almost two hours the Tour de France riders tried to re-propose what a handful of a hundred people tried to achieve about a century and a half later: a small anarchic world, a state free from French laws, from laws in general. It went badly for the rioters then: the first president of the French Third Republic, Adolphe Thiers, ordered the peaceful independence requested first and then declared to be violently put down. It fared better for the adventurous. The strip of lava that started from the Via di Vulcania made the group evaporate, transforming it into droplets. Then the nebulization stopped, the droplets became large droplets, the crazy particles found their dimension. They found her, the chaos settled down. Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel tried to turn it back on, they went ahead for a few kilometers thinking it would be easy to catch up on a good two minutes on the break. It’s not easy for them either. They gave up.

Up front, in the long run, fourteen good intentions of stage victories, comebacks in the general classification, scouting for contracts with a 2024 stamp.

He had the best intentions Skin Bilbao. He wanted to win, he wanted to redeem a Tour de France just too disappointing from Bahrain-Victorius – Mikel Landa, the designated captain, is behind in the general standings, Landismo is a dying utopia like the anarchist one in the Puy department- de-Dôme -, he wanted to scrape together a few good minutes to be able to hope for an excellent placement in Paris. And then there was the initial good intention, the one with which he left his Basque Country, that of continuing what his teammate and friend had started, Gino Mäder, died a few weeks ago while he was riding the Tour of Switzerland: “Following in Gino’s footsteps and continuing his legacy, during this Tour de France I will donate one euro to the Basoak SOS association for every rider who finishes after me in each stage. The goal is to buy deforested land and replant it with local species,” he said. Sometimes good resolutions make your legs move faster and longer. Pello Bilbao managed to win in Issoire. He was moved under the banner, he tried to be in one piece in front of the microphones, he didn’t make it to the end, he let himself go to emotion. He managed to do this by first taking on the task of organizing the breakaway, then doing most of the work to catch Krists Neilands, who had an infuturatosi on the last climb of the stage, caught up a few kilometers from the finish, then placed fourth. Now he’s up to fifth place in the general classification at just over four and a half minutes.

The Latvian looked for the avant-garde from the zero kilometer, he got away about twenty kilometers by himself ahead of everyone. He too had his reasons for damning his legs, heart and lungs to get there before the others. He wanted to cancel three Paperinic years, made up of setbacks in a continuous sequence, small pebbles that turned into avalanches of stumbling blocks: if one thing could go wrong, two could go wrong. Today he could have gone better, he’ll come to terms with it, it didn’t go so badly. A protagonist day at the Tour de France is worth at least an engagement for next season. And Krists Neilands doesn’t want to end up walking around at twenty-eight.

Good intentions have done what failed to the utopia of anarchism and the complete overturning of the Tour de France. Maybe the Grande Boucle wasn’t ready, maybe the runners weren’t ready, maybe they just estimated that the (energy) costs could be greater than the benefits. A little bad. They have given hours of intense cycling pleasure. It’s not the first. It won’t be the last. The runners are to be loved.

Tour de France, 10th stage: the order of arrival and the general classification