It does not rain but the asphalt skirts. The Shimano car passes at full speed. You can’t help you. No one can help Mikel Landa, fallen and broken on a sidewalk. Fetal position on the right shoulder. Every tyrant in the street and he, there. Five kilometers are missing and little for the goal and the Alavés ends up evacuated in an ambulance, end for him in the Italian turn. second step through the place. Very quick descent. Launched the platoon driven by the Lidl to the first Maglia Rosa de Mads Pedersen to the Sprint before the pyramid-mausoleum of Inver Hoxha, joyful center of climbing its inclined walls for young people of the future.
Curve in that, right left. On the outside, a bike against a lamppost, and a meter below, a step on the sidewalk, Landa. The 35 -year -old Alavés cyclist, happy on the eve because he had renewed for three more years in the Belgian Soudal, Niñero de Remco Evenepoel and owner of his destiny, leaves the turn before finishing the first stage. It hurts everyone. Everyone also invades a sad feeling of already seen. Poor Mikel always accompanies Mikel again. The turn is his career, twice third, winner in his mythical summits, Finnor, Mortirolo, Madonna Di Campiglio, Piancavallo. Hands down, ass above. Pure inimitable style. Fallen in Cattolica four years ago. Fallen again a year that felt rejuvenate after his fifth place in the tour. The class above all. “Cycling changes, but I’m still the same,” he said nothing. What was an irony becomes a kind of self -imposed curse. And, fatalists, foreign colleagues repeat in the press room, Landa is Landa.
Juan Ayuso also falls. It is at the beginning of the stage, landscape of skeletons of old factories, erect chimneys yet, empty, unemployment, a police officer every 100 meters covering each crossing, five in escape, visma in front of the hunt. The UAE leader, the young Spanish who represents as no one the cycling he has changed, barely suffers three scratches. The duel with Primoz Roglic that everyone anticipates, and wishes, has not yet begun. He will do it today at the Tirana counter. “I wish he looks pink,” anticipates his boss at the UAE, Mauro Gianetti. Isn’t it very soon? “It’s never soon if you arrive. You never have to despise it.” It is quickly reinstated to a stage of just 160 kilometers, a second and two climbs to the third that makes immense balcony over Tirana, a Belvedere, goats and sheep trisbing on a green, green slope; Luxurious resorts with suggestive names select Hills, glass walls and gorillas -type guards taken from horror movies on the doors.
-In such little route, 216 minutes at 45 per hour, six supplies, one every 35 minutes, only carbohydrate and gels overflow drones. Forgotten the bags. “Forgotten the muffins that I commissioned to make me the baker of my town on Saturdays the eve of the race,” laments Massimo overro, Piedo mayor of a small town with Novi Ligure, the town of Giradengo, and speaks behind the wheel of the assistance car. Image of cycling that no longer exists.
Of the cycling that changes, of the cycling robots of now, of physically fortunate kids to which all the sages of their teams tell them what they have to eat, when, how to sit, how to pedal, how to run, where to attack, where to stop, speak in the neutral shimano car that invites the envoy of the country to do the first stage of the 25th turn of 25, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania, in Albania. There are three cars of the Japanese component brand, Bianchi bikes disguised as blue, armchairs with a telescopic typical regulated from the handlebar to be coupled at any height, pedals of all brands, valid developments for all, which constitute a kind of 24th team. A team without runners that helps everyone. He drives over, who was amateur and bad cyclist. In the back of behind, the main mechanic, Andrea Guardini, who was a good cyclist, magnificent Sprinter. He talks about the time of cherries, strawberries, strange olive trees, almost wild hair, without being played by a hairdresser, vineyards and the smell of orange blossom who remembers their races and training in Calpe, on the Valencian coast and in their mountains. The car leaves behind the escape and Guardini more than the name of the runners, which also analyzes the material they pedal in case they have to change them, two with the 13th of Campagnolo, one with SRAM, two with Shimano, recite high. “Cycling has lost the poetry of fatigue, the poetry of the escape, already condemned before starting,” he regrets, as a blind man with a transistor, he follows the stage of ears by Radio Giro, or by the distant rearview mirror. And it is not known if you are glad not having to intervene. There are no breakdowns for the neutral car, which advances fast and waiting. Everything was prepared, just in case. All controlled, except for fate. “Not even the pure sprinters of before we have sites. The champions are now worth for everything, they want to win everything, in the mountain, in Llano, in counterreloj … there is no room for specialists. The runners born before 95 are already lost.”
He wins the stage and the Rose Maglia on the back of red flags, massive, as if it were a new classic, a hard guy, the Danish Mads Pedersen, 29, perhaps the oldest of the modern champions. The world champion of Harrogate’s flood in 2019 has run all the northern classics by placing him face, and losing, Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar in San Remo, Roubaix and Flanders, and winning the Gante-Wevelgem. He is Rosa’s first in history, 108 years of turn. His Lidl works, Tithe to the Peloton – Arensman and Gee, who thought of the general they lose more than a minute – and wins defeating the new second second, the Belgian Wout van Aert, convicted as Landa.
