A Bicycling Magazine exclusive. One of South Africa’s Tour de France hopefuls, Reinardt Janse van Rensburg will be blogging from the 2016 Tour, providing us with behind the scenes insight and updates on life in the peloton at one of the worlds greatest bicycle races.
‘We have arrived at the start of the #Tdf2016 Team’s Presentation in Utah beach. Nice touch the SA flag, isnt it?’ Reinardt JvR
Hey Bicycling Magazine fans, Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, here. I am writing from the Tour de France as part of Team Dimension Data and hope you are as excited about the Tour as I am. Every few days, throughout the Tour, I will be writing a short blog for Bicycling Magazine in South Africa and I am hoping it will give you a nice insight into the teams inner-workings.
First of all, it was a pretty long travel on Wednesday to get here, as nearly all of the riders had to fly into Paris and then do a 350km transfer to Normandy in the North of France. We got into Normandy around 19h30. The trip was made a little easier by having our fancy, new team bus pick us up at the airport. Thursday was a pretty busy day too. In the morning, we drove out to recon the last 10km of the first stage and in the afternoon we had the Official Riders´ meeting and team presentation; which was pretty cool… It had a World War 2 theme and we got to drive in old style military vehicles to the stage. All in honour of the victims and brave soldiers of D-day in 1944.
‘Making our way to Team Presentation via Military vehicles. Honouring the brave and fallen Hero’s during D-Day in WW2′ – Reinardt JvR
Looking at the first stages, I think the bunch will be particularly nervous for the days ahead here in Normandy. The weather prediction doesn’t look like optimal. It’s looking like we might have some strong winds to contend with, which always poses a problem.
The finish of stage 1 should be a sprint, but with the wind blowing it´s a question of how big the group is in the final kms and which GC contenders have been caught out. The 2nd stage looks a bit lumpier with an uphill finish which mix things up for guys like Peter Sagan and Edvald Boasson Hagan. We go into the first 3 or 4 stages with pretty good chances of winning at least one. Mark Cavendish is super keen to grab his first Yellow Jersey on stage 1, while Edvald Boasson Hagen looks to be in superb form, after his success in Dauphine. Watch out for him on stage 2.
‘On stage with Bernie Eisel.’ Reinardt JvR
As for the overall winner, I think it´s difficult to predict this year. Froome is probably the number 1 favourite, but Nairo Quintana, being a year more matured and also the fact that there are no TTs for specialists, can pose a very serious challenge. Then there is Alberto Contador…and the rumour in the peloton is that Richie Porte is in the shape of his life. Throw in names like Tejay van Garderen, Romain Badret, Thibaut Pinot, Fabio Aru, and it all becomes even more complicated.
Personally I hope Louis Meintjes can do as well as he did in Dauphine and finish high up on the GC. He is such a talented climber and I think he could feature in the top 10, which of course would be huge for South Africa.
But for now I am just focussing on taking each day at a time and trying to not get ahead of myself. I am definitely eager to get the show started now. I feel my form is good, after doing Tour de Suisse as my preparation race. I will be helping Eddy and Mark in the sprints the first few days and then I will be on the lookout to the opportunities when they present themselves.
Thanks for tuning in and we appreciate all your support.
Till next time,
Reinardt.
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