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Vandevelde took the inside line. A mistake. The mud had a crust on top, but underneath it was a grease pit. His tires slithered. He dabbed a foot, lost his momentum, and watched as Navarro floated past him. The Spaniard wasn't braking. He was drifting . His back wheel carved an arc through the slurry, finding the hardpack beneath.
Navarro said nothing. He just pulled on a pair of old-school, fingerless leather gloves—the kind that predated disc brakes.
He jumped off the bike, hoisted it over his shoulder, and ran . Two hundred meters to the finish line of the sector. The crowd, drunk on mud and madness, roared. He was a ghost from a different era—a mountain goat in a road racing world.
Midway down, the course funneled into a chute: a narrow tunnel of trees with a 15% gradient. Vandevelde, panicking, grabbed a fistful of brake. The front wheel locked. He went down hard, sliding on his hip, his yellow jersey turning brown.
The breakaway was already a smear of mud two minutes ahead. The peloton bottlenecked at the top. Vandevelde, arrogant, clicked up a gear. "It's just a farm track," he sneered to his directeur sportif.