The TOURist, Simon Clarke's diary. Ep. 4

I think the moral of today’s story is like what I talked about with Lawson. It’s not about what happens but how you react, how you get back up. Today it was Rigo’s turn to get caught up in a crash. And that happens. We do everything we can to avoid it but it’s not always avoidable. The important thing is to keep in mind is that the reaction to misfortunate is what you can control.

The team’s reaction as a whole was unbelievable, so impressive to see your captain crash in the last 10km and get back on. To be exact, he crashed with 6.5km to go and by 3km to go, he was back in the bunch. To get back on that quickly is next level for the team. We can’t thank everyone enough. That’s evident of how dialed we are here.

The EF Drapac p/b Cannondale leader Rigoberto Uran

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t have expected anything less, but I’m still happy to see that when we really needed to click and connect and react in a certain way that we did it perfect way without panicking. We got things right quickly.

Apart from that, it was a straightforward day. There was a little bit of stress with a few narrow roads but to be honest, one of the more tranquil days we’ll probably get in the Tour apart from that last 6km today.

Tomorrow is going to be a tough day. They’re saying it’s the equivalent of a mini Amstel. If that’s accurate, we’re up for a tough one. We’ll need all hands on deck, probably looking to Dani Martinez and Pierre Rolland, who up until now we’ve been trying to save and allow to take easy, they’ll be in. It will be all hands on deck to keep Rigo in the position he’s in and get him through the end of this first week unscathed and in the position he’s in now.

Here the Simon's statement after the race:

SIMON