Welcome Back to the Drunken Game Corner, where we will continue our exciting coverage of the Tour de Underpants in France!!! Yes indeed, we have more thrills, chills, and spills waiting for you!!
Today’s race, Stage 5, starts in Rouen and finishes in the ancient Roman town of Saint-Quentin. This is the flattest stage so far, travelling due east. It is raining at the finish line, so look out for that!
The cyclists are riding through the Picardy area of Northern France, which includes some of the vineyards in Champagne! Therefore, today’s beverage is Duval-Leroy Non-Vintage Champagne! It’s my favorite party Champagne since it’s a tasty and relatively affordable Champagne with a bit less acidity than many of the food Champagnes, so it’s perfect by itself or with a meal. Plenty of effervescence and lemon, fruit forward green grapes and apples, light yet flavorful on the palate, with a nice clean chardonnay-like finish. It truly is a delicious beverage!!!
Who will win today? Will it be Cavadish? Greipel? Sagan? Cancellara? Or maybe even Cadel Evans?
We start off with the coverage beginning with the peloton ahead by about 5 minutes with 4 riders in the lead. Many beautiful fields here as they make their way towards Saint-Quinten.
Fabian Cancellara is going back to the team car for a chat to relieve the boredom, apparently tram!
Now they are cruising along past another wind farm area. Now they are grabbing the food and water bags. nomnomnomnom! They are picking up the pace now as they head for the sprint. I can see the Dutch influence in the architecture here tram!
Bernie Isen is winning the sprint so far as he pedals hard! They are attacking! In the end, it ended up being Ladagnous, Urtasun, and Simon for the intermediate sprint! Wheeees!
Oh noes, it’s starting to rain a bit there! And helmet change time!
Oh yes, Clean Bottle, with the nipple on top!!! I just saw a pizza shop there that I would like to visit!!!! nomnomnomnom!
Things have cleared up as they continue on. Nice bicycle sculpture on the lawn!
Awww, a graveyard with both British and German soldiers from WWI & II.
Epic fields of hay with some turrets in the background! Now the peloton is catching up, just over two minutes behind at about 30 miles outside of the finish as they crank it up a notch!
The road has split as a few drops of rain have started. They are back together on a very narrow stretch with some interesting architecture coming up!
Wow, nice squares of farmland among the wind turbines! Interesting sugar mill and gravel pit!
Here again, one can see the Dutch influence on some of the buildings with the different colors of brick in the same building and such. Pretty! This area also has several canals that are still used as a shipping lane and such. Cool!
The peloton is once again speeding up as they wind themselves around roundabouts and narrow town streets.
Well, that was nice! Mark Cavandish’s teammates are rallying around him as they get closer to the finish. Wow, beautiful fields of yellow!
The peloton is in sight of the leaders as the pedal down a veryyyyyyy long straight road through the farming area, just about a minute behind at 10 miles away from the finish line.
LOL! At the finish line, before the riders got there, they had some fake race horses going across the line, along with a whole parade of blow-up figures!!! Wheees!!!!
The peloton is behind by 44 seconds at the 6 mile mark! And another mile done! And now uphill a bit! Awwws, nice depiction of a bicycle using a bunch of different colored tractors!!!!! Wheeees!!!!
Cute kids riding around a sign that says “Long live the Tour” ! Yays!
5 km to go with 29 seconds to catch the leaders! How ironic, a sudden traffic circle split with a sculpture with some impaled bicycles on the top of it – LOL!
Oh noes!! After a peaceful and scenic day of racing, suddenly there is an accident right at the end!!! Jonathan Cantwell went down, oh noes! Some shoulders were touching and down they went tram!
The remaining cyclists continue to pedal their butts off up some narrow and turning roads, along the edge of the canal towards the finish as the gap closes to 10 seconds behind the leaders. Can the peloton catch the leaders? They are all pedaling like crazy and then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Andre Greipel comes from the peloton to suddenly take over for the win!!!!!! Wow!!!! What a sprint!!!! How exciting tram!!!!!
Awwws, ‘Le Tour’ is spelled out in different colored canoes on the water! So cute tram!!!
Whew!!! Thanks again for reading meh latest post about the Tour de Underpants!!! It has been sooo epic to be covering the Tour with all of you tram!!!! Have tons of funz out there meh hearties!!!