Pedaling madly
Skating on rain-soaked pavement
Cobblestone death trap
\
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Authors Note: This haiku is in honor of today’s stage of the Tour de France, stage 5 in the very rainy north of France. Defending champion Chris Froome pulled out of the race after falling twice on the rain slicked roads today after falling once before in a previous stage.
You can get the idea of how dangerous this stage was from this slideshow from the official Tour de France 2014 website.
Dom DiFrancesco 
Just the thought of riding a bike on cobblestones makes me cringe. 🙂
Me too, I’m honestly not that graceful. 🙂
Absolute carnage. So sad to see Froome have to abandon the race. What a horrible day for the heavy rains to come and slicken up the cobbles and the roads. We haven’t had a wet paris Roubaix in years, but when you decide to put some of those roads in “the tour” of course it will rain in July. Sad to see so many riders hit the deck today. Great piece too by the way.
Thank you sir. I think I heard that 41 riders took falls in this stage. A rough day indeed.
41 was the final count? Madness. Some went down twice. Froome abandoned after his second crash of the day. His 3rd in 2 consecutive days. What an unfortunate set of circumstances. It may be a long while before we see another stage like that in the TDF.
Agreed, the way the riders looked after the race was more reminiscent of a mountain bike race than a road race with all of the dirt and grime they were covered in. Quite a sight and quite a stage to be sure. One for the history books.
I agree. Takes me back to when I used to race mountain bikes. The rainy days were the hardest to get up to race but the most fun once the racing started. Races of attrition like that are purely for those who can suffer harder and longer. When Paris Poubaix (Hell of the North) is raced in the spring rain it is 140 miles over cobbles and roads. A lot of yesterdays stage shared the same roads as that race. It is truly a test for the “hard men” of cycling. Not sure if I agree that a stage like that belongs in the tour though.
It seemed to be a bit of an unusual stage to be in this race, cobblestones, very narrow roads, I’m with you that it may not have really belonged in the tour.
OOPS. Paris Roubaix…..lol. Typing error.
No problem, I didn’t catch it either. 🙂
This kinda reminds me of my Ironman – without the cobblestones. It rained throughout my entire bike ride. Yuck. And dangerous. Road bikes/tri bikes/racing bikes have such thin tires. Yep, good times…..
Great piece:)
Thank you Kimberly. Although I have never been a competitive cyclist, I do so love bicycle racing and try to never miss a stage of the tour. To me it is one of the most incredible sporting events going. Knowing your background a little bit, it doesn’t surprise me that you can sympathize with this piece. Thanks for everything. 🙂