Stage 2: York to Sheffield, 201km. Rolling
This stage was one right out of an Ardennes classic. Steady enough for the first half and then suddenly and frequently, short but very sharp climbs. It ripped the field apart as I expected it might and as the roads narrowed down with the weight of tens of thousands on the side of the road of each of those climbs, the route became a wall of noise as the contenders for the GC in this Tour de France suddenly found themselves at the front and contesting a stage earlier than most of them would ever have expected to at a Tour de France.
Typically the big boys don't come out to play until sometime in the second week, but here we were, on day two and on the final climb -- short, but so steep they almost came to a standstill -- Alberto Contador was at the front, dancing on his pedals. Then Froome had a dig and over the top and onto the descent it was Peter Sagan, the only quality sprinter who could maintain contact, that tried to get away.
Finally into the streets of Sheffield and Vincenzo Nibali tried his luck. Contador had tried and they followed, then Froome, and then Sagan, but when the recently crowned Italian champion went, they all looked at one another. Sagan refused to pull them across and nobody else wanted to take it up and so Nibali charged clear hanging on to win his first Tour de France stage by two seconds over the reduced pack of 20. Sagan, who was on his limit to stay with this group, could only manage forth as a result, out sprinted by Greg Van Avermaet and Michal Kwiatkowski, but picking up points towards the green jersey that his rivals couldn't.
It was a superb opportunists move that Nibali is so good at. He knew that all his rivals had taken their chance and none would go again when he kicked. The two seconds doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of the race, but it puts Nibali into yellow and it lays down a psychological marker if anything else.
Once again the crowds were mega to the point of hazardous and you don't often hear of that on stages away from the high Alps or Pyrenees. At times the riders had little more than a metre or two to fit through and it bottle necked the pack when there was a large pack still together. It left those at the rear having to come to a complete stop and given the steepness of some of these climbs, it caused splits in the field earlier than some might have liked. But aside from a few idiots stepping onto the course to take a 'selfie' in front of the oncoming pack, the atmosphere and the numbers were brilliant to see.
Yorkshire should have its own top level classic race on the UCI calendar given what we seen here. This was the stuff of Liège–Bastogne–Liège and it was the men who want to win the Tour de France fighting it out.
Nobody won the Tour today, but plenty lost it. Kittel, never one expected to last long in yellow, came in 19 minutes, 50 seconds down. 146 men in all came in more than a minute beyond Nibali and while it doesn't end their dream officially, it does realistically. Today we got a fair idea by looking at the names in that final group of 20 plus Nibali who was in form to challenge for this Tour de France and it included some the names we expected: Froome, Contador, Valverde, Costa, Van Den Broeck, Van Garderen, Mollema, Talansky, Kwiatkowski, Porte.'
Result:
1. Nibali (AST) in 5h 8'36"
2. Van Avermaet (BMC) +2"
3. Kwiatkowski (OPQ)
4. Sagan (CAN)
5. Gallopin (LTB)
6. Albasini (ORI) all s.t.
Overall:
1. Nibali (AST), in 9h 52'43"
2. Sagan (CAN) +2"
3. Van Avermaet (BMC)
4. Albasini (ORI)
5. Froome (SKY)
6. Mollema (BKN) all s.t.