If there's a crash in the final few kilometres in this Tour de France then you can be sure that Marcel Kittel will be there to mop up the pieces and take the win.
Following victories on the opening day in Bastia and on Tuesday in Saint-Malo, the Argos-Shimano speedster secured his hat-trick in Tours with the best yet: a head-to-head win over the fastest urinal on two wheels, Mark Cavendish.
Before the Tour, Argos-Shimano made a series of videos with each of their riders giving a glimpse at "the person behind the rider".
Kittel's video is particularly interesting. You find out how he was initially a time triallist who was brought into the team as a lead-out man - but then started winning sprints, including four in the Tour of Poland in 2011.
"My goals for this year are simple," Kittel - dressed in a white t-shirt, denim jacket and trademark quiffed hair - says. "I want to be successful on the Tour. I want to come out of the Tour with a stage win, and when I think further I would like to take advantage of every possibility that I get as a sprinter to achieve success."
Well, the first is a given: Kittel has been an unqualified success on this Tour. He's been a success because he has three of what he was targeting - stage wins - and to achieve this success, he had indeed taken advantage of every scrap coming his way.
In stage one it was that huge pile-up that occurred just as the Orica-GreenEdge bus was extricating itself from the finish line gantry. In stage 10 it was a crash to his lead-out man Tom Veelers and the subsequent slowing of Cavendish. In stage 12 it was the nasty bike-tangle that did for three of Andre Greipel's Lotto train while holding up the Gorilla in the ensuing melee.
But saying Kittel only wins when his rivals are picking themselves up off the ground is doing the highly affable 25-year-old a huge disservice. Sure, Bastia was rather fortunate, but Saint-Malo required Kittel to come from behind to beat his country's national champion.
Then Tours on Thursday was the pick of the bunch: not only coming from behind to beat Cavendish, but to beat a Cavendish fired up by the lingering smell of urine in his nose, a Cavendish with a point to prove after his previous clash with Tom Veelers and the Argos train.
Kittel made a point of mentioning Veelers in his post-stage speech, dedicating the win to "a great guy" who "still has pain from the wounds" and who "was in tears" after having to "fight today just to finish".
The hyperbole was absolutely, extraordinarily and wholeheartedly apparent - and there's no denying that Kittel was perhaps stirring the pot a little. But it wasn't so much having a dig at Cavendish (to whom Kittel showed support after the dual "Wee-lers" incidents) as showing solidarity to his Argos-Shimano team, who he consistently refers to as family.
For Kittel indeed has a lot of love. Primarily, love for his team. But also for his sport and pretty much everyone around him. He's also one of those genuinely lovely guys who likes to spread good vibes because that's the kind of atmosphere in which he thrives.
Just look at him. With that crazy hair do - the sides shaved and the top resembling a sandy wave of hair perpetually on the verge of crashing on the shore of his tanned forehead - and his funky array of sunglasses, necklaces and V-necks, Kittel looks more like someone you'd see on the beach in Ibiza or buzzing in one of the Mediterranean isle's famous nightclubs, rather than a pro cyclist.
If Kittel's compatriot Jan Ullrich could have a weakness for disco biscuits while looking no more than your archetypal Bierpalast regular, then what about speed king Kittel, who pretty much looks like a raver from the moment he wakes up and steps out of bed. Every time he digs into his jersey pockets, you almost expect Kittel to dig out some glow sticks and a whistle.
Talking of Ullrich, the Rostock Kaiser is one of the select few German riders - the others being Rudi Altig, Erik Zabel and Greipel - whose three-stages-in-a-Tour club Kittel has now joined.
Quite remarkable, given this is effectively Kittel's first proper Tour after he rode five stages with gastroenteritis last year before throwing in the towel (a towel that even the most fervent fan would not like to keep as a collector's item).
Taking account of Tony Martin's win on Wednesday, this is the first time ever that Germany have won three stages in succession. Throw in Greipel's stage six win and that makes five from 12 - from a nation whose cycling fans can still not watch the Tour de France on live TV because of the on-going fall-out from the state-funded channels' anti-doping stance.
While Germany have five wins, the host nation is still awaiting its first. In fact, it is the first time since 1926 that France, Italy or Spain have not, between them, notched victories by this point in the race.
And what of Kittel's ultimate ambition?
"Every sprinter has a dream and my dream is to win on the Champs Elysees in the Tour de France," he says in the Argos-Shimano video.
Well, with the form he's showing plus the huge team effort behind him, perhaps Kittel will finally give Cavendish a run for his money in Paris. Cav, knackered from the Giro and clearly not in the same vein of form as previous Tours, has won on his past four visits to the famous Parisian cobblestones.
But all runs have to come to an end - just ask Kittel, who recovered fine from his stomach bug last summer. 12 months on, and you wouldn't bet against Kittel, fuelled on love, winning in Paris when he's this pumped up.
HOT: Argos-Shimano's sauna in Tours, 'Jean-Antoine' Flecha after his last-ditch effort to stay out ahead, and the scenes in the Europcar bus (where on French TV it looked distinctively like you saw a naked Davide Malacarne's birthday package).
NOT: Chris Froome's prospects of arriving in Paris with some Sky team-mates took a battering when Edvald Boasson Hagen crashed out with a broken right scapula. Manuele Mori of Lampre almost came a cropper when filling up his water cage, while Ag2R-La Mondiale's Blel Kadri somehow managed to summersault over his handlebars and almost land on his feet after a bizarre spill towards the back of the peloton.
STAGE 13: TOURS - SAINT-AMAND-MONTROND, 173KM
Saddles has a suspicion that Europcar's Yohann Gene will finish seventh in the bunch sprint, which sums it up really. Look, if you thought stage 12 was a bit boring, then stage 13 will be even worse. At least we had some chateaux to look at on Thursday. Friday is just the unremarkable Tourraine and Berry countryside - plus a five-man break that will be reeled in 15km from the finish.
There is a slight rise 10km from the finish, on the back side of which someone could jump clear for an audacious solo attempt. But most likely, it's a bunch affair which should be feisty: both Cavendish and Greipel really need wins, while Argos have the confidence - and could even surprise everyone by playing the John Degenkolb card.
But with Saint-Amand-Montrond effectively the bullseye of France (look on a map and you'll see it's dead centre) then perhaps we shouldn't discount a certain Cannondale rider who has Bull written all over his green bib shorts...
PLAT DU JOUR: You can't come to this region without trying the famous Œufs à la Couille d'Âne - which loosely translates as Donkey Testicle Eggs. Fortunately, they don't taste as exotic as they sound - in fact, they are eggs poached in a gravy of red wine and shallots.
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