Stage 13: Agen to Pau - Prunes

Can it be another flat stage?

It can.

One hundred and sixty riders pedal out of Agen.

Plus Baby Pierre, and the Kroombit tinker.

Wait till you see what I've got you, says Baby Pierre.

A fat beetle? asks the tinker.

She would love a fat beetle.

No, says Baby Pierre. But it's round.

When can I have it? asks the Kroombit tinker.

At the feeding station, says Baby Pierre.

That's conventional, says the Kroombit tinker.

I can be conventional, says Baby Pierre.

He zooms off to join the large breakaway which has formed.

It is reeled in, but it won't be the last of the breakaways.

Team Philosophe is stuck between echelons.

I blame the cross winds, says Vello. Do we drop back or forge on?

Forge on, says Gaius.

They forge on, and pass several riders who don't look too well.

They catch up with Sweezus and Arthur, who are trying to catch up with Nicolo.

Mind if we slip in behind you? asks Vello.

Slackers, says Sweezus. 

At last the feeding station is in sight.

Belle hands out the musettes, which are loaded with fat juicy ceps.

Mushrooms! says David. He eats several of the soft fat brown fungi.

Delicious! 

These are not ceps! says Vello, pulling a sticky brown prune from his feed bag. These are prunes!

Belle must have thought you needed them, says David.

Gaius wonders what he's been given. Ceps or prunes.

The Kroombit tinker has beaten Baby Pierre to the feeding station. She waits there, for him to turn up with her food.

Will it be a fat beetle?

Here he is now. He pulls a prune out from under his jersey.

A prune! Frogs don't eat prunes! 

Thanks, says the tinker, nibbling the prune anyway.

It's not bad, as prunes go.

Agen is famous for them.

In fact the prune gives her a super boost of energy and at the same time, helps her focus.

She shoots forward, to show Baby Pierre what she's made of.

All the way to almost the finish where, alas! she causes a spill. Six riders come down.

But not Jacob Philipsen, not Wout van Aert, not Pascal Ackerman.

First, second and third in a bunch finish.

No prunes were involved in the victory.