Saturday, September 5, 2020

Wine and Food of Le Tour 2020 Stage 8

Hello Pyrenées. Today they head 141 kilometers  from Cazères sur Garonne to Loudenvielle. 
Cazères sur Garonne specialties: foie gras, wines of Fronton, porc cazérien (labelled pork breed), duck civet
Loudenvielle specialties:  black pork of Bigorre (AOC), Tarbes beans, wines (Madiran and Pacherenc of Vic Bilh AOC), Barèges-Gavarnie AOC mutton, Trébons onions, Gascony hen, Garbure, Foie gras, spit cake…


The race director predicts: The first Pyrenees stage was designed on a course that will be both dynamic and demanding.In less than 100 kilometres, the riders will have to reach the Col de Menté followed by the Port de Balès and the Col de Peyresourde. A fine downhiller could then have the opportunity to make a difference on a descent of around ten kilometres to the finish.



The stage: A day for the break or an early gc battle? That may be the question of the day. Indeed, the break of the day was early, consisting of Benoît Cosnefroy and Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale), Ilnur Zakarin (CCC), Kevin Reza and Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept), Michael Morkov (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Neilson Powless (EF), Fabien Grellier and Jérôme Cousin (Total Direct Energie), Carlos Verona (Movistar), Toms Skujins (Trek-Segrafredo), Soren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) and Ben Hermans (Israel Start-Up Nation). Eighteen kilometers in and they had four minutes.
Le Tour has this bit of trivia/ hostory ready for us:  How come is Russia’s Pavel Sivakov from Ineos-Grenadier a local rider today? At Aspet, km 37.5, the peloton will ride less than 5km away from Soueich where Sivakov grew up and lived until he moved to Andorra two years ago. The man behind the story is Louis Barès. Aged 90, he’s from Ganties, a nearby village bordering today’s route du Tour. He rode the 1953 Tour de France with the regional team of the riders from South West of France but he didn’t make the time cut of stage 11 from Cauterets to Luchon, his home stage. He coached many cyclists until the end of last century, notably at the club of Blagnac in the outskirts of Toulouse. He mentored a Russian rider, Alexandre Botcharov, who came from Irkoutsk in Siberia and settled down in Soueich, also during his 11-year pro career with AG2R, Crédit Agricole and Katusha. Botcharov rode the Tour de France eight times and finished second to Richard Virenque atop the Mont Ventoux in 2002.
He attracted other Russian cyclists friends in his neighbourhood, including Alexey Sivakov and Alexandra Koliaseva who moved from the outskirts of Paris towards the end of Alexey’s career with BigMat-Auber 93 in 2005. Alexey rode the Tour de France twice, in 1999 and 2001. Alexandra was world champion for TTT with Russia twice. Talking about the Comminges, the territory of youth, Sivakov said: "This is where I learn how to cycle and went to see the Tour de France as kid." It’s also the area where Jean-Baptiste Doumeng (1919-1987) hailed from. A farmer turned businessman and politician for the Communist Party, he was nicknamed "le milliardaire rouge" (the red billionaire) for his dealings with the Eastern bloc during the cold war.
Twenty five kilometers in and the gap was up to seven minutes. By kilometer fifty, it was twelve minutes.
Dropping out of the race: Nizzolo, with a knee injury.
Crash for Bardet, but he would be back up and in the pack quickly.
Sixty kilometers to go and the gap was around twelve minutes.
Ahead was the first of five HC climbs in this year's race. The others are the Grand Colombier (stage 15), col de la Madeleine and col de la Loze (stage 17) and the Montée du Plateau des Glières (stage 18).
Ahead, Cousin took the lead solo. That breakaway would start to shrink with Reza and Morkov the first to drop. A new lead group would form with Zakarin, Peters, and Pacher. Behind, sprinters were dropping from the main bunch. Another out of the race: William Bonnet. And, wow. Dropped from the yellow jersey group, Pinot and he would lose a lot of time quickly.
Fourteen kilometers to go and Peters was solo. Behind, the yellow jersey group was shrinking quickly. Oh, Alaphilippe who attacked and seemingly dropped himself. The drops were coming almost too fast to track. Among those in trouble, Yates, in yellow, but he would fight back.
Attacking again was Pogacar.
Bad thought of the day: awful lot of fans along the side of the road pulling their masks down to yell at the riders.
Up ahead, with ten kilometers to go, Nans Peters had 45 seconds ahead of Zakarin.  The attacks would continue, fast and furious from the leaders group.
At the front: Peters with the well deserved stage win!
Top 5 on the day: 
1. Nans Peters
2. Toms Skujins
3. Carlos Verona
4. Ilnur Zakarin
5. Neilson Powless

Behind it looked like the yellow jersey group had come back together, with Pogacar still ahead. He would gain back time. '

The wine: Le Havre de Paix Cotes de Gascogne 2019
An easy going blend of Ugni Blanc ,Sauvignon Blanc, and Colombard

The food: You can only see spit cake listed so many times before you need to find out more, The BBC tells me that: Made by pouring layers of batter on a rotating conical-shaped mould over an open fire, the cake on a spit, called le gâteau à la broche in French, is a typical Eastern European recipe. But according to legend, when Napoleon's soldiers were withdrawing from their invasion of Russia in 1812, they brought it back with them to France. There, the recipe had been transmitted orally, with no written record of the original version. Although the cake is considered rare, according to Slow Food, the tradition is alive and well in two French regions: Hautes-Pyrénées and Aveyron.

(serves 120 people)

Ingredients:120 eggs 3kg sugar 3kg flour 3kg butter 2 litres rum2  cups Ricard While the fire is being prepared, mix the egg yolks with half the sugar. Add the rum and Ricard, and then fold in the flour. Stir in the melted butter. Separately, beat the egg whites, adding the remaining sugar once soft peaks form. Continue beating until they look like ‘snow’, and then combine with the yolk-sugar mixture until a deep yellow dough is formed.Cover the big, conical-shaped wooden mould with baking paper and place it on a spit in front of the fire, turning it constantly. After about an hour, begin gently pouring the dough on it. Continue adding the dough and turning the spit for about five hours.

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1 comment:

  1. Dr. PablitoSeptember 5, 2020 at 12:09 PM

    If Powless had not had the cross-country detour, would he have been able to claw back to Peters? Is Pinot completely finished? Withdrawal or super-domestique role now?
    Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

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