Fred Wright is exhausted, having just spent his afternoon in the breakaway at the Tour de France on stage 11, chasing that elusive stage win which he has been so close to multiple times. What he wants is to spin his legs out on his turbo trainer, but his bike has been taken away for testing, and his spare isn't here yet. What he probably doesn't want to do is answer questions about another near-miss, especially not when the moment he was dropped from the front of the race is being shown on the big screen, 100m away.
It reminded me of that moment in The Simpsons when Lisa breaks Ralph Wiggum's heart, live on TV, and is forced to re-watch it by her brother, Bart: "If you look closely you can actually pinpoint the exact moment his heart breaks in two," Bart said.
The Wright version of this, verbatim, is: "There it is, look, there's the moment. Look, look, look. Oh shit. Fuck's sake. That was it. I wouldn't have had the legs on the last climb anyway, if I was getting blown then. It's a shame."
The moment came on the Côte de Vieille-Toulouse, 14km from the finish, when two of the Bahrain-Victorious rider's breakaway companions, Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) charged ahead. They weren't seen again, with the win coming from the pair for Abrahamsen.
"I didn't expect to lose the legs on that penultimate climb," the 26-year-old explained just past the finish in Toulouse, his shorts covered in white sweat stains from over-exertion. "I knew Schmid wanted to keep it going. He was saying to us that we can't let the group catch us. I just ran out of steam in the last 100m. It was demoralising.
"I knew that Schmid was the man to be with, because I'd have him in a sprint. I didn't have the legs, I'll have to be honest about that."
Asked when he knew it was done, the Londoner said: "When I was looking at my Garmin and there was 200m to go on the penultimate climb, and the wheel was going from in front of me. I thought 'this was it'."
This isn't the first time that Wright has come close to that Tour victory that would make his career; there were the three breakaway days at 2022's race, with one second place, two more breakaway days in 2023, and then an eighth place last year. All in, there are six top-10s, 10 top-15s. No one can accuse him of not trying.
"I kept the legs good enough to try and make it today," he said. "When I looked through the Tour today was my first proper chance to try and get a result, so at least I can be happy I put myself there. It's hard to win a Tour de France stage, that's for sure."
The original break went with 156km to go, and Wright didn't join until 60km later, with Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies): "Me and the TotalEnergies guy, that was a hard bridge, it was fist bumps when we got there. After a break fight like that, you're already on the limit."
"It's a shame, I'm feeling great. Some of my best legs, but that's the Tour isn't it," he continued. "I wanted to race it like a one-day, and I did, so I hope I'm not suffering too much tomorrow."
This will not be the end of Wright trying to win a stage at the Tour de France, not this year: "I want to try and help the guys, [Bahrain Victorious teammate] Lenny [Martinez], we want to get polka dots with him. Then look for more days like today, stage 15 might be another day like that. Now we're out of the GC, we've got to take every chance we can."
