I have never before had a pedal break. But I had my premiere with this, of course on the Champs Elysees, which I would gladly have done without. I was lucky not to crash. At first I thought it was the chain, which had fallen. That usually doesn't happen. But that was probably because of the pedal break, which threw me to the right and gave me a big bruise on my behind. Only then did I see that the pedal was a goner. And then the rear tire was flat on my replacement bike. Everything all at once.

Getting back to the field cost me a lot of strength, but of course we wanted to try everything in the sprint. In the finale we were pretty hectic, I lost the guys in the tunnel, was far back and alone, and to be honest, my legs went and then it was over. The chase had taken more out of me than I thought.

All in all I am leaving the Tour with mixed feelings. Of course I am happy with my stage win. It is always a good feeling to win at the Tour. But we never got in a real flow, we had to work hard for everything. Naturally you always have to work and invest a lot. But it just didn't seem to come naturally.

As a team we can still be satisfied. With his ninth place, Daniel Martin got the hoped-for top ten placing. We had a lot of podium placings, were very present in break groups and presented our sponsors well.

Photo: roth-foto.de