In this Tour de France mid-week recap I catch you up on stages three through six. As for today’s dish, a classic Tarte Normande – basically a French apple pie. It’s a long post but bear with me, it was a lot of action in one week!
Mid-Week Stage Recaps
Stage 3: Flat Stage to Dunkerque
Stage 3 was a pretty sleepy flat stage for the first 130 km. The stage started off with rainy conditions, was 178 km long, and had one category 4 climb.
During the intermediate sprint point Jasper Philipsen had a hard crash and abandoned the Tour de France. (We later learned he had a broken collarbone and some ribs. He underwent surgery and is recovering.)
Not only was Philipsen the favorite for stage 3, he was one of the top contenders for the green jersey – a big loss for team Alpecin that had claimed the first two stages of the Tour and was off to a strong start. That wasn’t the only crash throughout the stage, there were a few other crashes including two in the final 5 km.
The peloton never stops though. After another 50 km of racing after Philipsen’s crash the stage predictably resulted in a sprint finish. Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep won the stage.
Stage 4: Hilly Stage to Rouen
With stage 4 the Tour arrived to the Normandy region of France where the Peloton will stay until stage 7. It was a hilly stage with 1,846 m of climbing across 174 km with 5 small categorized climbs.
While this should have been a breakaway stage few teams actually made the effort – giving the sense that most teams thought the breakaway’s chances weren’t good. In the end there was a 4-man breakaway that easily got swallowed up by GC attacks in the final couple climbs.
Pogačar attacked within the final 5 km on the final climb and Vingegaard immediately followed. Vingegaard lost Pogačar’s wheel but then saw Tadej losing steam and closed the gap again. They half-heartedly pull but were caught by Remco and the rest of the main group. Roglič is nowhere to be seen at this point, a theme across this first week of racing.
In the end there is a sprint finish between Matthieu Van der Poel (MVDP) and Tadej Pogačar. Pogačar wins the sprint and earns his 100th career win!
To help celebrate his win I had a Slovenian natural sparkling rosé made with pinot noir! Bubbles = celebration (obviously). And this wine was really delicious and the perfect summer rosé. Fruity with a nice level of acidity — drinkable on its own or with a meal. Who knew Slovenia was such a powerhouse in both cycling and wine?
Stage 5: Time Trial in Caen
The time trial was the biggest GC moment of the week. Individual time trials are often called “the race of truth” since each rider races on their own, without the help of their team.
Remco Evenepoel was the clear favorite for the stage; he is the world champion in the discipline. And he delivered, winning the flat 34 km course, giving Soudal Quick-Step their second stage win of this year’s Tour.
Pogačar came in second, 17 seconds behind Evenepoel, delivering a strong performance and showing that his poor time trial in the Criterium du Dauphiné was clearly a fluke.
However the biggest shock was Vingegaard who did not even finish within the top 10 for the stage. He lost over a minute to Pogačar. For Visma this had to be pretty close to the worst case scenario, no doubt dampening the team’s mood despite a strong performance by Edoardo Affini, the European time trial champion on Visma who finished 3rd in the stage.
Stage 6: Hilly Stage to Vire Normandie
Stage 6 was a hilly stage: 202 km long, 3,229 m of climbing and 6 categorized climbs. It seemed to be every teams goal to win from the break.
As a result, the stage started with a vicious fight to make the breakaway. After 50 km of hard racing, and the first two climbs, a break finally formed with: MVDP, Ben Healy, Quinn Simmons, Harold Tejada, Eddie Dunbar, Michael Storer, Simon Yates, and Will Barta.
The Peloton gave the break enough time to contend for the win (and for MVDP to regain the yellow jersey by the end of the day by one second!)
Healy, an Irish rider on EF-Education-Easypost made a solo break with about 40 km to go — a classic Ben Healy move. This ended up being a smart move — he would have had no chance in a sprint against MVDP. And ultimately Healy made it on his own with over two minutes on the rest of the break to win the stage and get his first Tour de France win! He even managed to make his way up to the top 10 of the GC.
The Dish
Normandy is well known for its apples, so the tarte normande was a no-brainer for today after the Peloton’s trip across Normandy. I’ve never made an apple tart/pie or any fresh-fruit pie so this was definitely something new. I usually like David Lebovitz’s recipes for french baking, and this one was no exception. The hardest part of this recipe was cutting up the apples, but I also tried to make sure I got nice thin slices.
I think my oven is not as hot as the temperature says so for me the cook time took a bit longer than the recipe stated but otherwise this was so yummy and easy to make. A nice twist on a traditional American apple pie if you want to try something new! Another 10/10 recipe to be honest.
Reflections
We’re about a third of the way through the Tour, but all of the mountain stages — where the real battles begin — are still ahead. While the time trial sparked concerns that Vingegaard is not up to the task of contending for the GC against Pogačar, only time — and the mountains — will tell if Vingegaard’s time trial was also a fluke or a sign of things to come.
On the food front, I have been really pleased with the dishes I’ve made so far. I think both the pacing and the recipe selection has helped me have a strong start, especially compared to the Giro, where daily recipes that were all a bit foreign to me led to some misses. However, we will be getting into some recipes slightly outside of my comfort zone in the week ahead, so we will see how that goes.
Thanks for reading!
A la prochaine!