Grand Tours are a bit of a time black hole. Once you start one, any sense of time gets sucked into the black hole. It’s eat, sleep, race, repeat. At this point in the race, I couldn’t tell you what day of the week it is, but I know that we’re almost at the first rest day of the Tour de France. After over a week of hard racing, I’m looking forward to it. It’s a chance to switch off, get some extra sleep, maybe take a coffee ride with the boys, and catch up with my friends and family.
This is my second Tour de France, and it feels a little more like a formality this time around, like any other race. Last season, when I made my debut, there was so much hype and excitement around it, and I didn’t know so much what to expect. It was a lot to take in. Now that I have my first one done, I wouldn’t say I’m a Tour veteran just yet, but I feel like I’ve got the swing of things and can manage the stresses of the race much more easily.
Luke Plapp is an Australian professional road cyclist, currently riding for Team Jayco-AlUla at the Tour de France. The Melbourne native, who is a three-time Australian national road and time trial champion, will be sharing his experiences from this summer's Tour with Cyclingnews.
The first week has gone by quickly, and that team time trial on stage 1 already feels like it was a lifetime ago. We’ve already done over 1,000km since Barcelona. Getting to open the race with a team time trial in the Catalan capital was pretty special.
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I’ve always heard from others that the final stage of the Volta a Catalunya is one of the best race days of the year, so it was amazing to experience it for myself. The crowds lining the roadside were incredible, and my ears were definitely ringing afterwards.
I love the TTT (in my opinion, it’s the best discipline; I won’t hear otherwise), and the team is passionate about it and has always done well in the discipline. We’ve been working on our TTT project for quite some time, so we were pretty pumped for the first stage. We came out to Girona for a small camp a few days before the race to do some TTT prep and dial in our set-ups ahead of the big day.
We don’t have a GC rider for this race, so we didn’t need to play it conservatively on the day, and we were willing to risk it all for a result. Obviously, the stage didn’t quite go as we hoped; we definitely wanted more than 10th place, but I’m proud of the boys and how we all went for it. There will be more opportunities for us during this race, and we’ve already shown in the first week that we’re prepared to take on any chance we can.
Pogačar's dominance and thriving in the heat
It’s been tough so far for the breakaway with the GC teams like UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike keeping a tight grip on the race in the opening stages. We saw how they shut down the Tourmalet stage when Ben [O'Connor] had a go off the front, and that they weren’t going to let anything go. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though.
Now that Tadej Pogačar and UAE have marked their dominance with such a big lead, I believe it could open the race up for teams like us who want to try and get out in the breakaway. I think it will open the race up a little more as we get into the second week, and particularly the back half of the race, and we’ll see more opportunities coming to us. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and taking my chances, and so are the rest of our boys.
Of course, the heat is also going to play a factor in how the rest of the race plays out. It’s been hot right from the start, and the high temperatures have been a 'hot' topic in the bunch during the first week, with staying cool being very important. There’s been plenty of ice socks down the jersey and bidons over the head to keep the core temperature down.
I actually enjoy the heat, though, and I’ve been feeling quite good so far. We get these temperatures during the Australian summer, so maybe we Aussies are more used to it than some. For me, the hotter it is, the better when it comes to recovery compared to others, so I’m happy with this weather, and I hope it can last for a few more days. I’m hoping that if this continues into next week and a few more of the boys get tired, then it could help me. When my opportunity comes, I’ll be ready to go.
