Was about 125m from finish yesterday.
No internet on phone so couldn't follow progress, but I knew Eddie had been in an early break, and the announcer at the finish kept mentioning him, could only pick up rough context coz my Spanish is almost non-existent.
Eddie was a few m behind Buitrago with about 300m to go, he made an attack from behind and just left Buitrago.
By the time he rounded the last hairpin and got to where I was standing he was a good 25m ahead, looking really fresh. Buitrago looked absolutely bunched.
It's only when you are up close that you realize a few things: the speed that these guys actually ascend fairly serious inclines, this after 200k in the saddle; the effort they put in - the stage leaders were spread out, mostly coming in individually, you could see that some of them were out on their feet (legs?) with the effort.
I got to see an Irishman (alright fuckit stop whinging - a Corkman) winning a grand tour stage, not a bad aul day atall.
On the way down met the grupetto, clapped them of course and got an EF Education bidon lobbed to me, a nice souvenir
Young Roche was second on this stage about 10 years ago or so. It was shorter then, the last 4k of the present climb was only paved about 5 years ago.
The crowd weren't mad like the Tour, easy to get a good view.
Oh and I saw myself on the highlight footage
.
