Lessons from Valverde and Froome in the wind

Valverde's attack on the ascent to Orduña.Kiko Huesca / EFE

The port of Orduña is a stone wall and vertical forests, praying below and moor above, where the wind blows and there are views, a cliff over the green valleys.

The cyclists approach like goats jumping capriciously, joyful looking for adventure.

Valverde, in front, guides the most determined, the more than 30 who want to escape.

Froome, behind, pulls the peloton, tucks Carapaz, who is from his team and is the leader of the Vuelta.

The older ones watch over and take care of the younger ones, and protect them from the wind that stops everyone in the air and sometimes they look like cartoon dolls marching in slow motion, their heads held low.

They know that young people, impetuous kids, sometimes lose perspective and, as even the newest win the Tour or the Giro and feel like protagonists every day, they also respect and even want to deny them the right to the most comfortable places in the world. platoon.

Everything they can do in life has been done by someone before them, and perhaps some even believe that Eddy Merckx is just the brand of the bicycle that Nans Peters rides on the run, and not the name of the best cyclist in history that in Orduña himself, almost 50 years ago, he had to bow to the repeated attacks of the rival who most wanted him, who was from Cuenca and his name was Luis Ocaña.

When he retired, Merckx set up a bicycle factory and when a child bought him one, he would go out with him to the Great Square in Brussels to see how it fit him and if it rode well.

The old men of the Vuelta, too, like all grandparents in life, surrender to their need to give lessons.

Valverde does it with a tactical movement: entering the escape, of 33 cyclists no less, not only forces the Carapaz team to work, which I could not leave much space (he was tenth, three minutes from the Ecuadorian leader), he also acts as a bridgehead in case Soler or Mas, the two of his team that are better under siege, attack in Orduña, and, as if that were not enough, he can even win the stage, which is a mini-classic at the bottom, which he likes the most , and seeks victory as do the best, and the impetuous kids too, attacking from afar, but does not make way.

Froome's lesson, four Tours, two Laps, a Giro won, begins when he rolls up his jersey and pulls like a wise gregarious man in the most unpleasant part, that of the false plains that wear out, and where it is easy to lose patience and break the continuity of the ant with which one has to behave, and behind Carapaz, a young man with eyes and ears wide open, feels happy, and he says so later, what a luxury to have this man working for me, one who has He has done so much and has won so much, and I am still learning and he teaches me and confidently transmits his wisdom to the team.

And a third old man, Michael Woods, joins the cycling master that the day has become with the best lesson, that of the attack in the last kilometer that dislodges his teammates and gives him victory on the Villanueva de Valdegovía road , where the Basque Country is almost Burgos, and smells like a plateau, although Woods and also Valverde, who was marching by his side until then, and does not lose the desire to win, perhaps it seems to them that they are in Innsbruck, repeating the arrival of the World 18 in sprint to four.

Then the Murcian won and the Canadian was third.

But Woods does not fail this time, and Valverde regrets not having come to his attack, and Woods takes the opportunity to sing the beauties of the Basque Country and the kindness of his fans, which he misses so much.

And many remember that Woods was also a prodigious young man, although not as a cyclist but as a mid-distance runner, an aristocrat of athletics who at 18 years old ran the mile in less than four minutes and the 1,500m in less than 3m 40s.

When he injured his knee he discovered cycling, with which he could continue to enjoy the pleasure of competing and winning.