Tour de Farce: Phinney packs a punch with polka dot push

In an alternative reality, the 2017 Tour would have been Phinney’s second or third outing on the world’s biggest bike race. Instead, a horrendous, high-speed crash during the 2014 U.S. national road champions put the promising American on the sidelines with a shattered knee.

Thirty-eight months after that ghastly crash, Phinney is finally making his first appearance in the Tour. If a solid performance in the opening time trial – he finished 17 seconds behind winner Geraint Thomas – flung Phinney back into the limelight, then there was more to come on day two.

But first up, Phinney did what Phinney does: showed just why he’s one of the most popular dudes in the peloton by congratulating Thomas – a rider who also knows one or two things about nasty crashes.

Except, Phinney wasn’t really going to see much of Thomas tomorrow, was he? Because Phinney had a plan – and executed it to perfection.

On a day his parents were in town to watch their son ride his first Tour road stage…

Phinney fought into the break and showed his cards instantly by picking up the solitary KOM point over the top of the first category-four climb.

Suddenly, these dogs didn’t look like they were going to be the only adorable, shaggy creatures in polka dots…

Bernie Eisel, it seemed, already got his present ready for Phinney…

Given his high finish on Saturday, that solitary point would probably have been enough for Phinney to become the first American in polka dots since Tejay Van Garderen in 2011.

But the 27-year-old made sure by surging clear to take the second point on offer atop the final fourth-category climb around 20km from the finish.

He then almost pulled of an outrageous coup alongside fellow escapee Yoann Offredo – the pair holding off the peloton until the final kilometre. Phinney, at the very least, had those polka dots as a consolation – and the congratulations came in thick and fast.

Asked how long he thought he could hold on to the iconic jersey, chilled out Phinney gave the most zen answer you could come up with.

In fact, just reading those words is not enough; you have to actually hear Phinney to appreciate his Big Lebowski-esque new horizontality of laid-backness.

In the rest of the interview with NBC, Phinney said: “I was just focused on taking this jersey, because I thought it would be really cool, and it’s something that might never happen again in my career – I’m not exactly a climber.”

Phinney described Offredo as “actually a pretty good friend of mine – a very close friend, now” before saying they had enjoyed their day of “cruising”.

“It’s actually Offredo’s first Tour de France as well. So, I told him right after the finish, ‘man, we were friends before, but now we’re friends for life, dude’.”

Elsewhere on a sodden stage from Germany to Belgium, there was a heart-in-mouth moment for defending champion Chris Froome and his GC rival Roman Bardet, both of whom went down in a pile-up on a tight, wet bend following a roundabout.

If you missed it, then thankfully the race organisers – clearly pre-empting the whole thing – put in an arrow just to show fans exactly where the incident occurred.

The race came back together before the finish before Marcel Kittel made history by becoming the first rider with a rotating, hot, exposed blade on each of his wheels to win a stage on the Tour.

One expert on Twitter was quick to cover his back to avoid any misunderstandings…

But Kittel, Phinney and a Froome crash aside, the second stage of the 2017 Tour de France will be best summed up by this…

Although the final word should go to that man Phinney, for whom stage two probably seemed like a drawn-out and rather soggy episode of Twin Peaks.

ps. Taylor: it was real enough - here's the proof: