Diary from Guyane part 10
The last stage is starting today. We got a big deal of publicity early in the morning.
As we were sitting in our room after breakfast, Jorg points his hand towards our balcony. We see one of the bikes stored there being lifted in the air, jumping over the balcony and disappearing. Guess the wind is not that strong so as to lift bicycles and blow them away from the balcony. We notice a Brazilian guy jumping down from the balcony to a roof of a parked pick up and down on ground. Daniel reacts, it’s his bike. He rushes outside only with his slippers on. The rest of us watch the scene from the balcony. The robber jumps on the bike and starts to pedal, but the fallen chain prevents him from moving. He sees the angry Daniel chasing after him, so starts running along the bike. He seems to be a bit faster than Daniel in his slippers. A police car coming from a side road stops the robber. Police guy starts beating the robber first in his head, and later also kicks him in his stomach. Another police guy asks Daniel to come with him to the Police Station to write the report. He calls us to come along as he doesn’t speak a word of French. The robber is still being beaten during all this time. Only when we pass him, the policeman puts him in his car and drives away. We walk to a near-by police station – there’s this chief officer enjoying his morning sandwich with a glass of wine. Friendly talks and his laughter seem to be endless. He talks to us for over an hour. I notice 10 shotgun leaning against the wall and face masks on the floor next to them. Since he is in a good mood, I dare to ask about the guns – whether it’s usual for them to take the gun and go out and look for criminals. His expression becomes serious and all his smiles disappear when I mention the guns. Of course, everytime a crime is reported, they put their masks on, take shotguns and drive their cars to wherever needed. We learn from the papers the robber’s name, Santos da Lus. David is not bringing any accusation towards him though. He knows it would take too much time to write the report and since there was no damage to his bike, no need to prolongue it. All of us realize that if we were not in our room when the incident happened, he wouldn’t have any bike by now. It’s mostly his fault of course, he shouldn’t have left his bike on the balcony. He didn’t assume anyone climbing up cars, balcony and window boards in a downtown *** hotel.
When the first ‘stage’ of the day is over, we head for the last cycling one. The plot is usual – a 5-rider group breaks away from the very beginning. We have Jorg in there, so we relax in the peloton. It’s Guadeloupe again controling the whole race and so we catch the leading group before entering the town. We are to do 5 laps in the city. I can see the great atmosphere there is at the main square – thousands of supportes shouting and watching the live programme on the podium. Circuits of the town pass fast, average speed doesn’t decrease from 50km/h. Finish line is really wide plus its the back wind that makes it all even faster. When entering the following lap, wind changes to a strong front wind – riders who decide to escape on their own don’t have long lasting. Here we go to the finish sprint – me and Geert are trying to find best position for the final sprint and other riders of our team try to be supportive. With only about 5km to the finish line a Dutch rider sees a car along the road, he suddenly changes direction and our bikes entwist, all this happening in the speed of 50km/h, riding with the wind. I slip from my saddle and remain seated only on the top frame tube, both my legs unclipped and scuffing on the road. I can hear someone falling behind us because of this incident. I free my bike from his and somehow manage to get back in saddle and try to rebuild my lost position. You don’t want me to repeat my words I used at that time. Soon I discovered my left cleat was partially distroyed from the scuffing on the ground, so I couldn’t pedal right using my left leg. Some more swearing followed when I found that out. I somehow manage to get back to front when all of a sudden, with only 1km to go a French rider crashes into me with his front wheel. I again manage to balance on the bike with my legs unclipped. The French guy falls to ground as his front wheel is damaged, half he spokes broke. So here I am in the 30th position again. We begin to sprint, it’s really fast, with the maximum speed of almost 70km/h caused also by the strong wind. I know I don’t have the right position not even the conditions. Marc Joseph, a local sprinter-hero wins again. Geert is riding strong in the finish and ends up in 3rd place. Well done, we made it to the podium at last. I finish in 11th place. I’m only lucky I didn’t fall nor end up somewhere in the safety fence along the road. But I do feel sad for the missed sprint, I felt I could have made a good result today. Well, not much to do about it now, maybe next year.
Martial Gene from Guadeloupe keeps the yellow-jersey, French Lemoin from Akoi Bretagne team being the runner-up. Daniel Korevaar finishes 18th, me 60 overall. I managed to be once fifth, once ninth and eleventh in a stage. I longed to make it to the podium, secretly hoped for a stage victory, but always missed the little bit of luck needed – especially in those 2 stages where a podium placing for me was really close. It really was a nice race though. Especially participation of 3 French and 3 Dutch teams increased the level of the event. During a big cultural show in the centre of the town, the Governor of French Guyane promises we would meet here the following year in a UCI race. After seeing the drive of the local people at the cycling commitee, and all the organizers, I do believe they can make it to the UCI classification, the level is definitelly worth it. It all depends on the French Federation of Cycling approval now.
We fly home after 11 days on the South American soil. To my big surprise, I find out my airplane company SkyEurope had gone bancrupt and I have no plane ticket to get home. I get to buy a new ticket with Swiss Air and fly home at last. These small unpleasantries in the end of the tour slightly ruined the good feeling I had of this year’s Tour.
All the results can be found in race calendar 2009.
