Tour de Tietema Cycling Team from the Netherlands, self-described as, “a Sunday-league team with World Tour stature. Three amateurs with pro-ambitions. Secretly we dream about our team in the real Tour of Flanders, or maybe even in the Tour de France!” organized an impromptu wheelie contest on the final climb of Sunday’s stage up the Col de Beixalis at the real Tour de France from the side of the road. And guess what, the main peloton decided to join in on the fun. Our hats are off to Devin van der Wiel, Bas Tietema and Josse Wester for pulling it off and capturing it all on video for everyone’s enjoyment.
The winner of the contest was AG2R-Citroen’s Max Walscheid. He slayed all comers with a 571 foot effort up a steep switchback, not just in a straight line. He may have finished the stage in 140th place, 30 minutes behind winner Sepp Kuss but we may just well consider him the true champion of the day. Watch the fun video below to see how it all played out.
(Ed note: Apparently the Amaury Sport Organisation is a cycling autocracy and won’t even allow fan filmed footage of its beloved Tour to be posted online. I blame Eddy Merckx for this because he’s pissed at Mark Cavendish. The video was cool).
Video unavailable
This video contains content from Amaury Sport Organisation, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.