Day 2 - Allez Allez
After carbing up at breakfast, it was an early start to beat the peleton to Chambery, 110km away.
I soon caught up with a group of riders who turned out to be riding from Amsterdam to Barcelona. Nate from Seattle was their co-leader and we had a good chat whilst rolling through the Swiss countryside.
As I was in a race to get to Chambery, I left them just before we got to the mighty Rhone which I followed until getting to the first food stop of the day at Seyssel.
It's a beautiful town with a very good patisserie where I got chatting to Chris from South Africa - no, not Chris Connon, but a climber guy who was heading to the Grand Colombier.
I then did my best Vasily Kyrienko impression rolling along the valley onto Chanez, supposedly the Venice of the Alps. It was v nice but don't think it gives the real one anything to worry about.
Then, it was 20k along the banks of Lac du Bourget which was v pleasant.
I was secretly pleased that the Gendarmes weren't letting anyone climb up Mout du Chat so I headed straight to Chambery where the local Gendarmes were surprisingly relaxed and let me ride to 500m of the finish to the shouts of allez allez from the crowd.
I managed to get a front row place to watch the final straight. The Aussies opposite were distraught when the commentary said Porte had crashed badly but became honorary French when Bardet attacked on the decent.
The last we heard, Bardet was 8 seconds ahead but when Froome was first round the final corner it was going to be a sprint for the line. Fulsang was first to attack but Uran looked good and to the dismay of most of the crowd it wasn't as first announced and Barguil lost it by a tyre width to Uran.
Cue mass celebration from the Columbians.
After the finish I did some pro stalking, congratulating Simon Yates on keeping his White jersey but momentarily forgetting whether it was Simon or Adam so I just said Yatesey.
I had dinner at a traditional Savoie restaurant and got chatting to Steve, an American cycling blogger, and exchanged stories of the day's events.
After today's easier ride - 110k with around 1,000m of climbing - down from Geneva, I might take the hillier route back...
I soon caught up with a group of riders who turned out to be riding from Amsterdam to Barcelona. Nate from Seattle was their co-leader and we had a good chat whilst rolling through the Swiss countryside.
As I was in a race to get to Chambery, I left them just before we got to the mighty Rhone which I followed until getting to the first food stop of the day at Seyssel.
It's a beautiful town with a very good patisserie where I got chatting to Chris from South Africa - no, not Chris Connon, but a climber guy who was heading to the Grand Colombier.
I then did my best Vasily Kyrienko impression rolling along the valley onto Chanez, supposedly the Venice of the Alps. It was v nice but don't think it gives the real one anything to worry about.
Then, it was 20k along the banks of Lac du Bourget which was v pleasant.
I was secretly pleased that the Gendarmes weren't letting anyone climb up Mout du Chat so I headed straight to Chambery where the local Gendarmes were surprisingly relaxed and let me ride to 500m of the finish to the shouts of allez allez from the crowd.
I managed to get a front row place to watch the final straight. The Aussies opposite were distraught when the commentary said Porte had crashed badly but became honorary French when Bardet attacked on the decent.
The last we heard, Bardet was 8 seconds ahead but when Froome was first round the final corner it was going to be a sprint for the line. Fulsang was first to attack but Uran looked good and to the dismay of most of the crowd it wasn't as first announced and Barguil lost it by a tyre width to Uran.
Cue mass celebration from the Columbians.
I had dinner at a traditional Savoie restaurant and got chatting to Steve, an American cycling blogger, and exchanged stories of the day's events.
After today's easier ride - 110k with around 1,000m of climbing - down from Geneva, I might take the hillier route back...
Fantastic photos from the (unreal) finish! I don't think that I've ever seen a stage quite like that...wow!
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