Tour de France. The strange solitude of Woods and Pogacar on the Puy de Dome

When Professor Bernard Brunhes was assigned to the terrestrial physics observatory of Clermont-Ferrand, he had never seen a live volcano, had never driven a car, had never cycled in his life. It was 1900, he was 33 years old, he learned to do all this in less than a month. The Puy de Dôme became his second home: the observatory was at the top of the volcano; cars he judged boring and useless: the first to reach the summit was in 1905, but it took him over four hours; he learned to pedal, he found it exciting, in less than a year he started climbing from Clermont-Ferrand to the observatory at the top of the Puy de Dome in just over two hours. It was in one of these ascents that he had the idea that consigned him to the history of science: the demonstration of how every few thousand years the magnetic poles of our planet reverse. He wrote: “Pedaling in absolute silence is a panacea for the mind, it helps to reflect on what has already been done and what to do, to create an effective grid for evaluating one’s work”.

It is not easy to find silence while pedalling. Nearly impossible for runners to compete in a bicycle race. They experienced the effect it has today climbing the Puy de Dôme, covering the last four kilometers forbidden to the public, to cars as a compromise with the local administration: you can return to the volcano after 35 years, but on our terms and those of the national park. It’s a pity that the television and organization motorbikes ruined the atmosphere a bit (but we couldn’t miss the stage).

Tadej Pogacar climbing towards the top of Puy de Dôme had the opportunity and the time to rethink what had already been done and what to do. Perhaps he has thought about what had gone wrong on the Col du Marie Blanque. Perhaps he investigated why he had managed to detach Jonas Vingegaard towards Cauterets-Cabasque. Maybe he didn’t do any of this. The Slovenian is not a man of science, he is a man of action and a cyclist, he thought that the Puy de Dôme was a good opportunity to add to the insecurities that the Dane has accumulated from the Col du Tourmalet onwards, since he had failed to carry out the coup at the Tour de France. Tadej Pogacar did it, he put another eight seconds between him and Jonas Vingegaard: he is now 17 behind.

However, seconds count for little, especially on a climb like this: certain slopes lengthen distances and paradoxically shorten gaps. What matters more is the scenic dimension, those few meters that shortened to about ten and lengthened to about thirty like a rubber band of suspended hopes and unspoken fears. Jonas Vingegaard had Tadej Pogacar’s back before his eyes, he saw it approaching as the pace increased, he saw it move away after seeing his face. The Slovenian seemed to be playing cat and mouse, only that he was the mouse joking around the cat, giving him the illusion that he could be reached, then he cleared things up by regaining the meters he had lost: even from the Tom and Jerry cartoons we can learn lessons. It is unlikely that the opponents can take a cue from this. When those two, the usual two, accelerate, the others don’t break away and by a lot. It will be a challenge to those who resist the distance more and better. The hierarchies are not yet defined: what was valid yesterday is not valid today and who knows if it will be valid tomorrow. Simon Yates seems the most constant and with the best legs, Jay Hindley the one with the most imagination, sometimes that’s enough.

The Tour de France hasn’t climbed the Puy de Dôme since 1988, political, environmental, safety problems and the Grande Boucle, you know, moves a lot of people, it needs a lot of space. In the silence it is not known whether the cyclists experienced the same sensations as Professor Bernard Brunhes, without a doubt they saw what generations and generations of cyclists have never seen and which, probably, they would have liked to see instead: what is rarer it is usually more coveted.

Matteo Jorgenson was the first to take the forbidden road over a minute and a half before those with him who had tried to escape from the group, about a quarter of an hour before this one. He had abandoned the company of the thirteen adventure companions of the day who were about fifty kilometers away from the finish. He had estimated that they were too many, that it was better to be alone, especially for someone like him who doesn’t have his strong point in sprinting and pedaling hard on double-digit slopes. He seemed to have done the math right, he got them wrong for less than half a kilometre. Michael Woods on the other hand did them perfectly. He had long been disinterested in the fate of the escape, in the attempts of the adversaries to try to take off. A certainty that started from experience moved him. When the gradients are constantly above ten percent, it is the kilometers in which the gradients are greater than ten percent that count in a breakaway. And so as soon as the road fell silent and the fans disappeared, the Canadian got rid of his fellow adventurers and started to pick up on those who had left him on the flat one by one. Michael Woods reached the top of the Puy de Dôme alone and first. He has become a name and surname in a list of names and surnames of exceptional level: starting with Fausto Coppi, the first winner in history at the Tour de France in 1952.

Michael Woods said the last kilometers had a strange effect on him. Partly from the fatigue, above all from the emptiness that surrounded him. We believe him. It just needs to be understood if he really makes sense to play a sport that is unique in the world thanks to the proximity of the public, forbidding access to the public.

The adventurous have found space towards the Puy de Dôme, they will also find it the next few days. On Tuesday and Thursday, the streets of the Massif Central will be an ideal terrain for picking up opportunities that will stop at lunchtime, at the start of the stages.