After scooping up the Yellow Jersey on Monday, Agritubel’s Romain Feillu had a pretty rough go of it in yesterday’s time trial. The kid obviously gave it everything he had but ended up 169th on the stage, losing almost 5 minutes to Gerolsteiner’s Stefan Schumacher. When the dust settled, Romain was 41st on GC and would have been around 80th if not for the two minutes he picked up the day before. Then again, he probably would have ridden a better TT if he hadn’t spent those 5 hours off the front.

In any case, what does it all mean? Maybe it’s a reminder of how much luck is a part of any success. Not to take anything away from Romain. His second place at worlds in the U23 road race in 2006 and his GC win last year in the Tour of Britain as a 23-year-old rookie happened because he’s a great young talent with a ton of potential and a bright career ahead of him. But every rider in the Tour is talented and every one of them would ride as hard as Romain did on Monday to take the yellow jersey. He just happened to be in an attack that stuck.

Get lucky on Monday and all of a sudden you’re a national hero. Have a bad day on Tuesday and you’re just another guy in the bike race. Cycling, like the rest of life, is capricious. The only thing you can do is keep at it, like Romain did today when he fought his way to the front and finished 13th in the field sprint. After the roller coaster of the last few days, he regrouped and kept racing bikes. That’s all you can do.

photos by Graham Watson

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