The riders' faces told the story of the day. Mouths ajar, they crossed the line with blank expressions, their lips purple and dirt splashed across their skin. "Where's the bus?" they asked their soigneurs in desperation. "Turn right, then right again." Only a handful stopped for a drink. A few stopped for jackets. The majority, barely easing off the pedals, disappeared away to the cosy promise of warmth.
The finish of stage three of the Tour of the Alps, only a six-minute drive from that of stage two, felt a world apart. Overnight, the temperature had dropped in Schwaz, down from the mid-teens to four degrees celsius. The rainfall was light, but it was icy, the kind that seeps through to one's bones.
Even for the stage winner, Lidl-Trek’s Juanpe López, Wednesday was "not a day for cycling".
"It was one of the hardest days of my life," the Spaniard said, wrapped in layers, barely recovered from the cold. Ahead of the stage, the 26-year-old hid from the elements, taking shelter in an arched doorway away from the roll-out.
"We rode in three or four degrees in the rain," he said. "It was completely different from what you would expect racing in zero degrees or minus-two, with no rain. Right after the start, we all got stuck. Our legs, our hands. It was so freezing cold."
The chill spread throughout the peloton. After the finish line, Charlie Paige, TDT-Unibet's young Brit, stood stunned with chattering teeth. Unable to speak, his soigneur wrapped him in a duvet-like jacket and zipped it shut with urgency.
For López, who won from a 25km two-man breakaway, the key was getting out of the peloton. "I thought it would be worse for me to stay in the bunch without spinning the pedals. It would be too cold for me," he said.
"I never train under the rain. Of course, I live in a place where it only rains twice a year, so it's easy for me not to do it. On days like this, you open the window at 7am, and you think, 'It’s a perfect day for staying at home, snoozing in, not going out to train or race.'"
As is often the case, the bitter weather claimed its victims. Ten riders failed to finish the stage, while in the general classification, Ineos Grenadiers’ Tobias Foss ceded his leader's jersey from day one to López.
The Norwegian’s team-mate, Geraint Thomas, rolled in three minutes and one second down, a gap that's likely to put him out of the overall battle. Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla) and Esteban Chaves (EF Education-EasyPost) also saw their GC prospects slashed.
"[Thomas] was suffering quite a bit in the cold, like everyone," Ineos Grenadiers sports director, Zak Dempster, told the media by the team bus. "I hope he kept on the pedals. Let's see how far he is on GC. [ed. Thomas is now 22nd, at three minutes and 11 seconds]. Obviously he's not close, but it's important he gets the efforts in everyday and today was just really nice practice for a cold stage at the Giro.”
For Dempster, the rain and cold was "as big a factor" in deciding the stage as its four sharp climbs.
"It didn't help G how cold it was today. I think it's right on the limit with the cold protocol, but it was a short stage [at 124.8km], so it was manageable," he said. “We'll take stock of the GC situation and see where everyone's at exactly and formulate some sort of plan to try and win another bike race before the week's out."
First, though, a warm shower, and a cup of coffee on the bus.
