Tour Stage 5: On to the Cobbles

After months of discussion and kilometers of racing the peloton hit the wet muddy cobblestones hard.  The sections of pave lived up to their billing and the stage was in for some deviations from the script all of the pundits had provided.  Normally these roads are raced in one day Classics and the men that line up on race day are specialists in riding the challenging road surfaces, but in the Tour de France there are a wide variety of specialties vying for victory and Yellow.  The peloton broke into quite a few pieces as crashes, slippery roundabouts, strong winds and fatigue took there tolls on the hard men of the Tour.  With a break away up the road the vastly reduced peloton hit the second section of pave under the leadership of Lars Bak (Lotto-Belisol) and Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin Pro Cycling), they were accompanied by Sebastien Langeveld, Andrew Talansky (Garmin Sharp) and surprisingly the little Italian in Yellow, Vincenzo Niblai, and his Astana teammates, Lieuwe Westra and Jakob Fuglsang.  This is a small original watercolor and ink painting that is available through my artist website at www.greigleach.com.  It will be included in my soon to be self published visual telling of the 101st Tour de France in "Book de Tour".  To learn more about the book project, to pre-order your copy or to get involved in bringing the race to print, please visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1335072134/book-de-tour.  To purchase this particular painting you can follow the direct link at the end of this post. 

http://www.greigleach.com/large-view/Tour%20de%20France%202014/2399268---199992/Painting.html#.U72x88vD_IU