Catherine and I played a couple more stages of the 2024 Tour de France as adapted for Flamme Rouge last night.
Stages 8 and 9 will take us up to the first, very welcome, rest day.
Stage 8 runs from Semur-enAuxois to Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. It offers a couple of small ascents and scattered sections of cobblestones (which are used in some designs to represent hilly sections).
We went back to the Red and Blue rouleurs dominating the breakaway spots in this race. Weather consisted of some rain plus a headwind on the run to the finish.
The ascents broke up the riders, and I got nicely up with the front-runner. Catherine was on my tail though. At this stage the sprinteurs were still at the rear, with the gruppetto.
The rain caused a crash in the cobblestones, slowing the sprinteurs even more.
Three riders on the sprint to the finish. I was in the lead at this stage, but just lost out tp Catherine. I got a welcome second place, and my sprinteur finished ahead of hears, so I closed up the gap by a point or so. The blue rouleur came third.
Despite a mid table finish the white peloton team was still in the lead at this stage, but Catherine was close behind them. Blue was still in a strong third place. I was still ahead of red in fourth place.
Stage 9 was a circular run (on the map at least) from Troyes to Troyes. It's a horrible-looking course. There are a couple of nice descents, but no supply zones and a lengthy run of cobblestones in the second half to reduce slipstreaming and add in plenty of blocking opportunities.
Red and blue were the breakaway riders again, and both bid heavily for the privilege, reducing their supply of good cards.
Once again the terrain broke up the riders into groups - sections of cobblestones interspersed with the ascents helped with this. At this stage red and blue were still in a commanding lead.
The weather was wet with a headwind again, and once again we had a crash. I got my rouleur up front though, and Catherine stalled at the same time, suffering some bad luck at the start of the long cobblestone run.
With a hand of good cards saved up I went for a sprint finish, and pulled ahead of the pack.
My first win of the Tour! Catherine's green riders finished mid-table, whilst my sprinteur made a nice run to finish third. This really boosted my points.
I had loads of exhaustion cards, but the rest day has got rid of most of them.
So at the end of Stage 9 the scores are:
Individual
Green Rouleur (Catherine) - 95
Blue Rouleur (Bot) - 85
Pink Rouleur (Me) - 85
Red Rouleur (Bot) - 73
White 1 (Peloton) - 71
White 2 (Peloton) - 66
Blue Sprinteur (Bot) - 49
Pink Sprinteur (Me) - 46
Green Sprinteur (Catherine) - 43
Red Sprinteur (Bot) - 40
Team
Green (Catherine) - 138
White (Peloton) - 137
Blue (Bot) - 134
Pink (Me) - 131
Red (Bot) - 113
Gruppetto - 49
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