All riders must go through a bad day at the Tour de France; whether it's bad luck or bad legs, it's almost impossible to make it through three weeks of racing without it coming to get you. For Adam Yates (Orica-BikeExchange) it was bad luck that knocked him for six on the penultimate mountain stage.
A badly timed mechanical problem with his gears led to a bike change and forced him to use up vital energy to re-join the main group. At this stage of the Tour de France, riders are scraping the barrel for their last reserves, and they'll pay for using up any too early in the day. Yates found that out on the final climb of stage 19 to Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc when he gave away 30 seconds to his closest rival and slipped off the podium.
"It was a bit of a tough one. It was all good until I had to change bikes," he said in the race's mixed zone, the white jersey still firmly on his shoulders. "I had a mechanical; I was having a couple of issues with my gears. It happened at a critical moment where you had to be in the front, and you had to be in a good position.
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"I spent a lot of energy getting back to the front and obviously we had the big climb, the longest climb of the day straight afterwards. Maybe it was energy that I could have used in the final to not lose these seconds, but it is what it is."
Throughout this Tour de France, Yates has been calm and collected no matter what position he finds himself in. Through the flamme rouge barrier collapsing on him on stage 7 to having the yellow jersey given to him and taken away almost in the same heartbeat a week later, Yates takes it all in his stride. He lets for a brief moment of emotion, noting his frustration at taking a backwards step in the overall classification, before trying to look on the bright side.
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