My Favorite Moment From This Year’s Tour
By Ashton | Permalink |
4 comments | July 29th, 2007 | Trackback
was the picture of Mauricio Soler pedaling up that huge mountain with the other King of the Mountain and GC leaders. I think it was the second day in the Pyrenees just after the rest day. The Pelaton had been climbing up those steep mountains for hours, they were on the last climb of the day, one of those out of classification brutes. Millions of us world wide were watching the stage on television waiting to see which rider would attack Rasmussen first. Soler was bouncing up the mountain on his bike and someone handed him a water bottle. He poured some water on his legs and face then shook the bottle in Rasmussen’s face, apparently asking if he’d like a drink. Rasmussen gave him a dismissive shake of his head. Soler shrugged his shoulders, tossed the bottle off to the side, and went right back to bouncing.
What a beautiful metaphor of this year’s tour. The old guard, hell bent on winning at any cost and driven to arrogance by their desire to excel, humbled by the boyish naivete of the new kid on the block who looked like he was just happy to have someone to ride up the mountain with him and willing to share his water.
A few minutes later Soler reached back trying to get a new bottle of water from his team car. Either he did not know or had forgotten that water bottles cannot be passed on the upward climb of the mountain. That made the earlier scene all the more entertaining for me.
If anyone finds a photo or a video clip of that scene, would you please email it to me or post a link here. I would love to be able to keep that as a memory of what this Tour has represented to me.
Comments
I agree, Sarge. That was an awesome exhibition of both the human spirit and athletic ability. There were several of those on almost every stage of this year’s tour. Unfortunately it now appears that some of them might have been artificially enhanced. We did not fully appreciate the extent of McEwen’s first stage injury until the next couple of stages when he was unable to produce his typical turbo charged finishes. That makes his stage one win even more impressive in my eyes.
I still love that image of Soler, though. He looked like a great big kid on a ride with his buddies, bouncing up that mountain just for the fun of it or just to see what was on the other side wanting to share his experience with the guy on the bike next to him. Rasmussen’s dismissive head shake seems to communicate so much more too, now that we can put it into the proper context.
I hope others will share their favorite moments with us. We still have a week before the Deutschland Tour and we have to pass the time somehow.
My favorite was Fabian Cancellara’s stage win where he time-trialled away from the chasing peloton and just barely beat the sprinters to an awesome victory. If that finish line had been another few meters away, he’d have lost it. The timing was brilliant, but the sheer ballsy-ness of it was what I loved most.
My sentiments exactly! Soler is one-of-a-kind in the peloton - the rookie Colombian who is as as nice as they come.
I’m sure the gel-haired, pretty-boy packed peloton got a kick out of this homely, humble climber for his humility & honesty. Let’s hope he never changes!
¡VIVA SOLER…y viva sus Colombianos- los Reyes de las Montañas!!!
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My favorite moment was Robbie McEwen getting up off the deck and coming back to win stage 1 in a dramatic last second sprint. That was awesome.