‘Bitterly disappointed’ – Mark Cavendish laments mechanical issues as Adam Blythe and The Breakaway keep the faith

Mark Cavendish launched a kick which looked set to propel him to Tour de France win No. 35, but a mechanical issue and power of Jasper Philipsen denied him victory in Bordeaux.

The Manxman went wheel surfing in the final kilometre and appeared to time his run to perfection, as a gap opened up on the right-hand side of the road.

Just as he looked set to hit top speed, he sat back down in the saddle. Adam Blythe on The Breakaway picked it out immediately, suggesting Cavendish had suffered a gearing issue.

Cavendish confirmed the problem was slipping gears, and lamented the issue.

“I was in quite a good position,” Cavendish told Eurosport. “It looked like I was far back but it was a long straight.

“I was on the right wheels, I kicked a little earlier than I’d liked, but it was about the same as in 2010, but once I kicked my gears jumped from 11 to 12 and I had to sit down.

“Cadence was whacked up, gears went back to 11, and then tried to stand up again and back to the 12, but there was nothing I could do.

“I am bitterly disappointed, majorly disappointed, but we will keep on trying.”

Blythe expanded on the issue and likened it to a car changing gears at high speed.

“Imagine a car in top speed going as fast as you can,” Blythe said. “Your can probably drop it down a gear but it is going to rev very high and you are not going to be able to accelerate as much and that is exactly what happened to Mark.”

Dan Lloyd picked out the fact that Cavendish required a wheel change deep into the stage, and suggested that could have been the issue.

“He had a rear wheel change about 40 kms out,” Lloyd said. “He tested it but could not put the sort of effort in that he would in a finish.

“In theory that cassette should be in exactly the same place as the wheel you have changed, but there can be slight discrepancies. They are so narrow nowadays and if it is a fraction of a millimetre off it can jump into a different sprocket.”

Cavendish’s body language before the stage suggested he had targeted Bordeaux, where he won in 2010, to get his 35th stage win and take him out of a tie with Eddy Merckx.

His body language post-stage reinforced that view, and sprint stages are in short supply moving forward.

Saturday’s run to Limoges offers hope if breakaways can be controlled. The uphill finish would not be ideal for the 38-year-old, but he showed in Bordeaux that his legs are extremely good and Blythe feels he could go close on Stage 8.

“The form that he is in at the moment, strong,” Blythe said when asked what sort of chance Cavendish would have on Saturday. “We know he is good at putting himself in position.

“It is 1.2km at 3% so not the steepest in the world, and he’s been up before on those kinds of sprints uphill.”

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