Stage Eight: Mâcon to Saint Etienne - Intervention

A hilly stage, with 3800 metres of ascending elevation.

At the start of the climb up the Cote d'Aveize ( last categorised climb of the day):

Vello: Tell me again why we do this,

David: Because every year YOU insist.

Vello: And you give in. Leaving me in this position.

David: The entire team is in this position.

Vello: Except Nietzsche. Where is he?

David: He's somewhere up ahead with Mouldy.

Vello: How the dickens does he keep up with Mouldy?

David: No idea. Anyway, seems he didn't. Here he is now.

Gaius: Well done, Friedrich!

Nietzsche: What for?

Gaius: Keeping up with Mouldy, if only for a short spell. What have you learned?

Nietszche: It seems he gained his predictive powers during his time with the thrombolites.

Gaius: Indeed? Did he claim that the thrombolites passed on their predictive powers to him, or that he gained the powers independently?

Nietzsche: I failed to ask him that question.

David: Tut!

Vello: It would have been my first question.

Nietzsche: I was more interested in results, not method. For example, would you like to know who's going to win today's stage?

Vello: Thomas de Gendt, unless the fates decide otherwise.

Nietzsche: Remarkable. That's what Mouldy predicted. How did you know?

Vello: De Gendt has remained in the breakaway all day and been first to top every mountain.

Nietzsche: There are more ways than one to skin a cat I suppose.

Gaius; Clever. I must write that down.

Nietzsche: Don't bother. I didn't invent it.

David: Anyone got any food left?

Vello: Let me feel around. What's this?

He pulls out a beautifully woven short velvet ribbon.

Vello: A lucky bracelet! How sweet!

But you can't eat a bracelet.

Which is why Team Philosophe in spite of best efforts don't distinguish themselves in the hilly sections today.

Thomas de Gendt wins the stage as he always seemed to be going to.

The fates have not intervened here.

Not here. But they may have had something to do with what happened 16 k from the finish, when Michael Woods crashed, and Gianni Moscon's bike split in half, and Geraint Thomas had to stop, although not for too long.