Sunday, July 7, 2019

LeTour 2019 Stage 2: Bruxelles Palais Royal > Brussel Atomium

Where are we? Time trialing around Brussels! 
LeTour tells me that: With the Palace of the Nation, home to the Federal Parliament, which lies at the other end of the Royal Park, the Royal Place of Brussels is a symbol of constitutional monarchy. It is the administrative residence of the King and his main workplace. Built between 1815 and 1829, it was the reunion of four older 18th century town houses. Since 1965, it has become a tradition for the Royal Palace of Brussels to be accessible to the public every summer after the National Day on July 21 until the beginning of September.
Atomium
One of the symbols of Brussels since its construction for the 1958 World Fair, the Atomium is a representation of a unit cell of the iron crystal enlarged 65 billion times. Contrary to popular belief, the nine balls of the building do not represent the nine provinces of Belgium. Designed by engineer André Waterkeyn, it rises to 102 meters and its metal structure weighs 2,400 tons. Destined to be demolished after the exhibition, this monument to the glory of science became so popular that it was finally preserved.

 The stage: Team Time Trial time! What is that? For those not familiar with the sport, the TTT as it is known, features entire teams of riders racing against the clock rather than each other. Teams start at equal intervals, usually two, three or four minutes apart. The recorded finishing time in a team time trial is based on the 5th rider of that team. Therefore a team may choose to have a few of its riders take a strong pull towards the end of the TTT event, in which the riders take as hard a pull at the front to lift the pace at the cost of exhausting themselves with no hope of being able to latch onto the back of the formation for drafting. They then drop back and leave the remainder of the team to finish the time trial. Or, watch this video:


Up first, Ineos, the team once known as Sky, one of the favorites on the day. They would come in with a time of 29:18. Astana in at +21 seconds, which given Fuglsang's crash yesterday was a great time for them. Great ride for FDJ, in at 29:29. As the other teams come in, the most noticeable thing is that with a few exceptions, the gaps were nut that large. Sometimes in a ttt, a gc riders team would perform so poorly that it would hinder his attempts to podium. So far, that had not been the case today.
Just about midway through the day and the standings were:

Team Ineos 29:18.00
CCC Team 29:28
Groupama-FDJ 29:29
Astana 29:38
UAE Team Emirates 30:01
Movistar 30:02
Trek-Segafredo 30:15
AG2R La Mondiale 30:16
Total Direct Energie 30:39
Arkéa-Samsic 30:48

 Next in Katusha, who looked for a while to be challenging Ineos, but they would finish 6 seconds down. Also coming close, Sunweb. 


Wow! Jumbo was super fast on course. But could they hold it? 
And wow, Quickstep just missed out. They finished .82 seconds back. 
Ineos waiting to see Jumbo's time and they were looking really fast.


And, wow, indeed. Amazing ride by Jumbo today to keep the yellow jersey.
Apparently they averaged 57.2km/h. 


GC:

1 MIKE TEUNISSEN





2 WOUT VAN AERT





3 STEVEN KRUIJSWIJK





4 TONY MARTIN





5 GEORGE BENNETT





6 GIANNI MOSCON





7 EGAN BERNAL





8 GERAINT THOMAS





9 DYLAN VAN BAARLE





10 ELIA VIVIANI





The wine: Or beer, again. Going back to our friends at Visit Brussels to find another suggestion: The beers of the Brasserie de la Senne are produced by two Brussels natives Yvan de Baets and Bernard Leboucq who are first and foremost passionate beer fanatics. They work in an artisanal brewery and for them, brewing traditional, unfiltered, unpasteurised, additive-free, high-quality natural beer is a point of honour. These complex-flavoured beers with strong personalities have real character. They ferment again in the bottle or in the cask, which guarantees that they keep for long and their flavour evolves. The names of the Brasserie de la Senne beers shows their love for Brussels: Zinnebir, Brusseleir, Stouterik, Saison Meyboom, Brussels Calling, and their quirky vision of Brussels is never far away, with the Taras Boulba and Jambe-de-Bois beers.
Visits for groups only, minimum 15 people (booking required)
Chaussée de Gand-Gentsesteenweg 565, 1080 Bru | +32 (0)2 465 07 51 | info@brasseriedelasenne.be | www.brasseriedelasenne.be
The food: You didn't think you were going to get out of Belgium without waffles, did you? What Visit Brussels has taught me is that there is not one single national waffle. The say: When you ask for a waffle, be sure to specify “Brussels waffle” because in Belgium waffles come in all sorts and sizes in the various regions of the country, each having its own speciality, mostly cold versions of it. Amongst other famous waffles, there is the Liège waffle with chunks of sugar, which caramelize rendering a slightly sticky outside. This waffle is also preferably eaten lukewarm.

Brussels waffles (yield: approximately 30 waffles)


  • 1/2 kg all-purpose flour
  • 5 eggs, separated
  • 3/4 l milk
  • 250 g butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
  • 32.5 g active dry yeast (fresh – available from your baker or in your local supermarket)
  • a pinch of salt
  • 2 packets vanilla sugar
Set aside a small bowl of milk.
In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, flour, rest of milk, melted butter, vanilla sugar and salt.
Heat the small bowl of milk (lukewarm) and dissolve yeast. Stir well. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir the yeast mixture into the batter.
Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks, gently fold into the batter.
Cover the large bowl with a clean cloth and let rise the batter in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
Bake your waffles using a waffle iron with large holes. Preheat the waffle iron. Brush it with oil. Spoon a small ladle of batter inside the edges of the iron. Close the lid and turn the waffle iron over in order for the batter to spread evenly in both parts.
Bake until steam no longer escapes from the iron. After a few minutes, the waffle is golden brown. Serve immediately.
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