TdF daily: a tough first day in the Alps

Today was a rough day at the Tour de France. As Esteban put it, “This [race] is the dream. And today the dream hurts.”

James Shaw suffered a concussion as a result of a crash. CT scans and X-rays showed no signs of further injuries to the rider making his Tour debut. Esteban Chaves sustained an injury to the sternoclavicular joint in a separate crash earlier in the stage. Both riders will remain with the team tonight and medical evaluation is ongoing. They will travel home when cleared by team doctors.

James and Esteban rode this Tour with guts from the start. They both dreamed of stage wins and had both come close earlier in the race. Esteban sprinted to fifth out of a break on stage ten.

In his debut Tour, James climbed to fifth on stage six, after riding over the Tourmalet at the front of the race. Friday, he was seventh on the summit of the Grand Colombier.

We’ll miss their spirit and their work ethic, but we know we’ll see them again at the races when they’re ready.

Meanwhile, Neilson Powless went on the attack to try to keep his lead in the polka-dot jersey competition. The American put up a brave fight in the Alps, matching attack after attack on the early climbs. Shouts of “Go Neilson! Go Neilson!’’ spurred him up each climb, especially after he was caught and passed by the riders racing for the general classification.

Neilson inspired the Tour’s crowds with his riding over the past two weeks. He is now even on points with the leader of the King of Mountains competition, the yellow jersey holder Jonas Vingegaard. Neilson will wear the polka dot jersey tomorrow. There are a number of tough Alpine stages ahead. Tomorrow is another chance. We’ll race hard.

We’ll keep dreaming. Vive le Tour de France.

Hear our team’s thoughts from after stage 14.

I gave it everything for the breakaway in the beginning for points. I took some, but Jumbo just did a team time trial behind us and by the time they caught us, I was completely empty. I raced with everything to keep pulling the gap back out and try to fight for more points, but I was suffering on the last couple of climbs. I gave everything in the beginning and paid for it in the end.

We came down off the downhill before the first GPM of the day and something went wrong on one corner to the right and a lot of bike riders crashed, including myself, and I hit the floor really bad and the race was stopped for a bit. I came back to the bike and tried to follow the race when they started but I couldn’t go deeper. It was painful. When I started to go deep, I couldn’t breathe. When I breathed really deeply, it started to feel painful and I just decided to stop. I feel disappointed. Sad. It’s a lot of effort you put on all of this, like all of the team as well. We tried to do the best and everything changed in just one second. It’s life.

I passed for this a few times as well, I know how this feels. You just need to disconnect a little bit, relax, and see everything in a different perspective. See what is completely damaged, attack that, recover, and do it again.

All things considered, when you think of how bad it could have been, maybe I was lucky. I think my helmet saved my life today. If not, it certainly prevented more damage than I could have had if I wasn’t wearing it. It was pretty smashed to bits.

At the end of the day, it could have been a lot worse. Worse things happen. I just remember hitting the back of someone. My spirits are dampened for sure.

There were a lot of crashes today and a lot of dreams shattered. Esteban is in the same boat. What a day. A few of the boys crashed there early on. That is biking racing, isn’t it. That’s what we tell ourselves.

I can’t go home disheartened. I am disheartened to leave the Tour, because it is the biggest bike race in the world and I was hoping that a few more opportunities would come in. I didn’t sit at an altitude camp for weeks on end missing family and friends to finish on a hospital bed, but that is the way this sport works.

It was a really, really difficult day, I must say. We have to refocus. Our guys were riding so well today and yesterday. They were looking for opportunities and we are going to do the same. It doesn’t matter if we have just one rider on the bus. We are going to keep doing the same. That’s our style, our mentality and I think this is the message of the day that they are going to receive tonight: that we are going to do our best and we have been in this kind of situation before in other races and will keep believing everything can be possible. That’s the direction to follow now.

Neilson has the same points now as Vingegaard, so he’s going to wear the jersey. We saw the strategy of other teams as well today. It’s not as if they are fighting for that jersey. I’m talking about Jumbo and UAE. At the same time, they are fighting for the Tour de France and they are fighting for the Tour de France on the climbs. When you have bonus seconds on the final climb of the day and they want to get the seconds on top, then they fight really hard. Basically, nobody in the peloton has chances to get the points there. Let’s see. To gain that jersey, we just need to go in breaks and keep on fighting and keep on believing that we still can do it.